Plagued Sleep
by Flame Falcon
Summary: They are some of the best smashers that have ever graced the arena. The arcane empowered Zelda and the twice blessed Ike. They seem to have no weakness on or off the battlefield. But in the vulnerable recess of their dreams, they are weak. Desperation claws at them, but their actions to fix their problems only causes more. For the M-Rated Contest.
1. Chapter 1

**Well, after much consideration, this is my entry for LegitElizabethWWEFan's M rated SSB Contest. I am trying something new and I hope you enjoy it. As always, please review.**

* * *

 _The dream began as it always did. With smoke and blood._

 _One saturated the air that Zelda breathed in with ragged and scarred lungs. The other one saturated her dress, and continued to pour from the wound in her side where three long slashes left their mark. She ran with ruined sandals and torn silk. In calmer times, she would have stopped and adjusted her looks before she continued, but these were not calmer times. She had to run, anywhere! She had to escape the thing that hounded her through this dream._

 _She knew it was a dream. For the past twelve days she had done nothing but run through Hyrule Castle aflame, the insidious laughter chasing her as that… thing hunted her like a fox would do to a wounded rabbit. The stone alcoves of the hallways she was familiar with began to twist in random directions, adding to the sense of helplessness and defeat that washed over her._

 _"Come now, little witch… I have a gift for you." The voice was nothing that any mortal creature could make and Zelda's head ached with the sheer wrongness of the sound. Each smoke laced lungful of air she breathed in, more pain cascaded across her body. She had to keep moving. Maybe this time it would be different, maybe she could finally escape from him- it, she corrected herself as she stumbled over a pile of burning support beams._

 _"It doesn't matter how far you run, little witch. I will always find you. You cannot escape." It continued to taunt her. Zelda felt tears well up as the certainty of the words poured from the shadow would eventually become real. But this shadow was no where to be seen. Fire illuminated everything, there was no darkness or shadow of her own. Zelda continued forward, feeling the salty iron of her own blood fill her mouth. She pushed the crimson life force out with her tongue, and the blood sizzled in the open flames and heat that continued to batter her._

 _A flaming brazier tumbled over after being hit by a wooden support beam. The oil that was alight flowed over Zelda's feet, causing her to scream in pain. The fires licked up her calves as she ran through the fiery substance, unable to use any of her arcane gifts. Once she was away from the stream of fire, she paused in her run to tear her leather sandals off and smothered the flames with her hands. The sickly smell of burning flesh filled her nose and pain wracked her body. She needed to continue, she needed-_

 _The sound of metal piercing flesh stopped her mind. Her head slowly looked down as the heat faded away, as did the pain from her preexisting injuries. Everything was insignificant, to the metal blade erupting from her chest. The thing laughed right behind her and a wet sandpaper like tongue ran under her chin. "Now, my little Hylian whore, would you grace me with a scream?"_

 _Despite every instinct she could draw upon, Zelda complied._

* * *

She jolted out of bed, her body covered in a thin film of sweat. She was sucked in the cool late summer night air, thankful she could not taste the smoke she expected. Zelda felt her bare body with her right hand, making sure that even though it was a dream, she did not carry any injuries. She breathed out slowly with gratification that she found none.

She collapsed back into the bed, content and relived that it was nothing but a dream. But it was hollow hope to her. Indeed, what could she do now? No matter when she closed her eyes, the terror would come for her. It would find her, and it would kill her in such a gruesome fashion. There was no escape. She tried just about everything she could think of. Even tonight she stayed up late, working on her fighting skills in the hope that with her body exhausted, she would not be able even to dream. Now, ever muscle in her body ached and her heart beat like a drum, ringing in her ears.

She sat up in her bed, looking around her room, thankful she slept alone and there was plenty of soundproof insulation lining the walls. Often, she had woken up screaming just as she had done in her dreams. Tonight, the dream was slightly different. While she did scream, she had never felt the thing's tongue against her chin. She never wanted to feel it again.

She sighed and kicked off the sheets and made her way to her master bathroom and stepped in the shower. Pulling on the brass chain, the warm inviting water washed over her face and hair, slowly working down the rest of her naked body. She rubbed her eyes and let her body rela in the water. She was safe, at least until she would need to sleep again. She couldn't avoid sleep, so much depended on her being focus and alert. Even though the night terror plagued her each and ever time she rested wore down her mind, her body was partially recuperated. She could still participate in the fights, be active with various other activities, and function like a normal person.

She sighed as she reached for the cleaning lotion and poured it over a washcloth. Her body may be fine, but she had little hope that her mind could endure such things for much longer. It was true that she was a sorceress among sorcerers. She could bend reality to her will, summon bolts of Fayore's lightning from her fingers and Din's fire from the palms of her hands. But they failed her when they couldnot eliminate this haunting. She could not look at others though they may often look to her for strength and guidance both in the arena and beyond. She could not bear to see the worried look in their eyes when she began to reach for a bottle of pain killers for what she said was nothing more then a small headache. Zelda couldn't face the fact that there was something wrong, even with her, there there was nothing to fix it.

She felt her body relax as the water raised in temperature and she scrubbed her lithe arms and elegant chest. While the sweat fell away and exposed her skin free of impurities and shining like polished ivory, she could still smell the smoke and hear the dread laughter of her nightmares. Try as she might, she could not scrub that clean.

* * *

 _"Not much farther now, just through the woods here." Ike motioned with his great sword through the clearing the rough path offered. Behind him were his two of his mercenaries, following him through the thick brush that lined the nation's borders with their sister nations. In better times, these forests would have been full of wildlife, with hunters using their bows to bring home meat for their families or to sell to others who needed it._

 _Now, it was a war zone. The animals that were not culled to feed the invading army's appetite had long since fled. Those hunters were now employed rangers and assassins, attacking any who dare stand against them. The peaceful aura that once blanketed this patch of wilderness had become a fearful sense of icy foreboding, as every movement had to be checked to make sure that a small burrowing forest mouse was not a rival mercenary settling into a firing position to pick off one of the mercenaries at his back._

 _"It would have been a kilometer in a straight line." Soren, the cold mage, muttered under his breath but still very audible. "We should have reached the end of the forest long ago, but with this pathway it is hard to tell. Must have been designed by a lunatic."_

 _"A lunatic with an aversion to straight lines." Ranulf, the snark-filled cat laguz and on of the best friends Ike had, agreed. Ike nodded and began another curve. The path was indeed crooked. Too many times they had taken a slight curb, only to find the way they were going for to be behind them, only for the curves to once again set them on the right path. "I still think you shouldn't have split our numbers like that. Who knows how many outriders this army has."_  
 _"Exactly, we will cover more ground this way. At least one of us will regroup with our allies and the others will follow in suit." Ike said but he heard something. It wasn't the grumbling from Soren who was usually the most dour of individuals Ike had the pleasure of knowing, nor was it the breathing of Ranulf. He massaged his head, but the buzzing sound wasn't coming from his head. "Quite." He sternly ordered the others. They stopped in their current position, heads scanning the surrounding. "You hear it too?"_

 _"There, straight ahead." Ranulf gestured with his his hand and his feline ears twitched once he recognized the direction of the sound. The three picked up pace as the sound was not an omen of anything good. Once they were close enough to the edge of the forest, they managed to confirm that the buzzing sound was an insect noise._

 _Once they got free from the forest, they saw a whirling black mass that occupied everything in front of them. "What in the name of Yune is that?" Soren asked, knowing the answer to his own question, but asked it out shock._

 _"Flies. It is a cloud of flies!" Ike stated and flies with that number meant only one thing. He edged closer to the cusp of the storm of flies, and was battered with the stench of decayed flesh. Ike covered his mouth with a rag soaked in pine essence to filter out the reek of the decaying flesh. The ground they walked on was over saturated with blood that each time they set their foot down, more of the crimson life force and it splashed onto their boots._

 _Finally, at the epicenter, they saw the charnel mound that the flies encircled and fed upon. Stacked twice as tall as them and easily a hundred meters wide, was a pile of corpses and littered with those that had not been tossed upon the mass pile or had died after they dislodged themselves from it. Maggots writhed in each of the corpses, some freshly slain while others were swollen and on the verge of exploding. All strata of life was in here, and their killers were indiscriminate with how they killed them. The corpse of a young rural girl, dressed no more than rags laid at an awkward angle over and elderly priest, whose fine robes were sullied by the viscera and blood of his fellows. A toddler, barely more than two years old had been run through from the back was gripping the hem of her grandmother's robe in hands rendered tight by rigor mortis._

 _As Ike waded through the lake of blood and looked up and down at the slaughter, he could not shake the unvoiced truth._

 _This was his fault._

* * *

His eyes bolted open. His breathing was heavy and labored. Ike raised his hand and saw that it was trembling. He used those lungfuls of air to center himself and relax his tortured mind. A moment passed, in which his body was cast in the cold unrelenting light of the moon, and the trembling slowed to an almost undetectable twitch.

Ike buried his head in his hands. That even was almost three years ago, and still, in the dark corners of his mind, it came back to him. He had seen thousands upon thousands of horrors during his tenure as a mercenary, in both his home continent and abroad. The latter was from where this experience hounded him. The scale of the slaughter, that is what set it apart. None of them were armed or were fighters at all. They were put simply to the butcher's blade and that peaceful forest became a tomb.

He felt his gorge rising at the memory, and walked to a window. Once it was open, he took in a deep breath of air and spat the taste of bile out of his mouth. That vision had been at him recently for an unknown reason and while he had seen it many times since that event, they had been few and far in between. Why was it coming back now? Did something trigger it or was it plaguing him for a reason.

As a cool breeze moved in, Ike walked over to his nightstand and produced a plastic bottle filled with clonidine. He had taken this without Dr. Mario's permission, knowing that it was generally proscribed to soldiers with shell shock symptoms and that it would help him with these nightmares if they paid him a visit again. Ike could have gotten it if he admitted his problems, but he feared the stigma and ridicule. He was a warrior, born from warriors. He could not look weak.

He took three little white pills from there and popped them into his moth, following it with some water from a glass he left at the side of his bed. He shook his head as he began to feel the drugs claw into his body. He had taken twice the recommended maximum dose. His constitution was considerable, and a general resistance had built up.

He laid back down in bed, the ringing in his ears containing a slight buzz to it's tune.


	2. Chapter 2

Zelda massaged her temples as she felt the latest dose of painkillers set to work. She had been up since the crack of dawn after her shower and had spent much of that time cloistered in the library, looking over all available tomes of various ethic beliefs relating to dreams. A pot of strong tea sat next to her as she poured over the cracked and torn pages of various mythical cycles and their translations by a long dead civilization.

She had night terrors before, when she was a toddler long ago. They were never this bad though. She feared the things around her. Spiders, rats, and especially the darkness. She cracked a dry smile as she recalled the fact that she wouldn't go to sleep without a candle lit until she was six years old.

But as she grew in wisdom, she pushed fear into the back of her mind along with many of the other emotions that threatened to overthrow her sense of calmness and order. She might be viewed as cold to many who didn't know her, uncaring and unemotional at the very best. But she wore this mask because emotions were very volatile things. She was the princess and heir apparent of the Kingdom of Hyrule. She could not allow her emotions to rule her. She was always told not to listen to her heart, that way lies temptation and disappointment. Her head was where the true path resided. It may not always make the popular or the morally correct choice, but it always made the right one.

She set aside the old tome she was reading with a scowl on her face. She poured another cup of Tiger Lilly tea and looked down into the swirling and cloudy green elixir. As a monarch she needed to not be afraid of anything. A monarch sometimes needed to rule _by_ fear but not have fear rule her. Zelda may be young, even by Hylian standards, but her fears and other emotions were reigned in. Perhaps that is why she felt weakened and angry with herself. That exorcised emotion ate away at her in the weak of these new dreams. The shadow clad hunter who stalked at the edge of reality waiting to strike. But she didn't fear it.

She feared no one. She recalled a quote from one of the greatest authors she had ever had the pleasure of reading. _The oldest and strongest of mankind is fear_ , _and the strongest and oldest fear is fear of the unknown_. How correct he had been. She only feared that which she could not understand. Rats were a nuisance, but they served a purpose in life. Spiders were likewise, though they only proved a lethal threat when they were threatened. Even darkness was not inherently evil, it was simply the absence of light. Sun and moon, both balanced each other. These were of the natural order. Light and dark. Life and death. They were the equilibrium, no reason to fear.

But the unknown, things she couldn't control or comprehend is what kept her awake before she was truly in control of her emotions. Even the eldrich abominations that lurked at the border of waking life, driving the soundest of men insane were part of the natural world. But there were things out there that did not fit into the natural order. Creatures without forms that the primitives called demons, and even to this day they would be called that because there was no other way to describe them.

She shook her head. Were these nightmares caused by that which she had not comprehension of? Something from strange aeons ago made her the plaything of which she was to writhe and scream to the tune of whatever stalked her? She breathed a silent prayer to the goddesses that this was not the case. She had the mental barriers, enforced by her rigorous arcane training and mental discipline. She would have been able to raise her mind's gates with little effort and could repel even the most stubborn of attackers.

However, since these nightmares wore her down, her diamond hard defenses were weakened. These not only protected herself from outside attackers, but they also protected others from her. Her gift was a double edged sword. It was true that she could control the divine elements, command inanimate objects to life and, if she was truly pushed to her limits, shatter every bone in someone's body without so much as a simple hand gesture. Her training and willpower kept that magic under her control, but if something was to happen to that defense, she would be unable to control it. And being unable to control those powers, it was not a thought she relished.

Still, the sooner she got rid of these nightmares the sooner she could resume her regime and rebuild those walls. She looked back to the pages of tomes and the papyrus of scrolls, hoping to find an answer to the problem plaguing her.

But out of the corner of her eye, she saw a black spine that beckoned her to it.

* * *

"Come on you yekke, try it." Marth goaded Ike on as former raised the glass to his lips as if he was going to be drinking poison. Yekke was a word Snake used to insult Marth with on multiple occasions in the previous season. Marth was told that the word meant 'tightass' but Ike had a suspicion there was more to it than that.

He would be thinking that if the sake wasn't burning the inside of his mouth. How Marth managed to drink this while still having a tongue to waggle was a mystery to him. It continues down his throat with a volcanic slowness and heat. He placed the glass down, the burn turning into a numbing tinge down his gullet. Interesting drink for fermented rice. "It clearly is an acquired taste."

The prince laughed and took a sip from his own ceremonial clay cup. "Altean sake usually is from what I have heard." He looked over to Ike looking him up and down as a fencer might inspect a sword before a duel. "You appear not to be well, and it is obvious your inability to hold your liquor is not the case."

"Go fuck yourself, little wolf." Ike shot back, as Marth gave a playful scowl at the translation of his last name Ike used. "What makes you say that? I'm feeling good though this acid you give me isn't fortifying my health."

Marth laughed again. Surprisingly, he was often a somber individual in the crowd of others, but when he was alone the burden of duty and princely demeanor fell away to reveal the Marth Ike had known for the past seven years. "Well, it is in the way you move. You are sluggish, even without your sword in your hands. Also," he gestured to the dark circles under Ike's eyes, "you look as if someone went ten rounds with your head. That or you are working on your Halloween costume of a raccoon."

Nothing escaped his gaze. Ike saw no reason not to tell Marth the bare bones of his troubles. "Alright. I seem to not have been getting the sleep I wanted or need. Falling asleep isn't my issue, staying asleep is."

"Nightmares? Can't get comfy in that bed?" Marth asked as he sipped more sake.

"Not really sure how to explain it." Ike stated, it was a half truth. He knew damn well what was the trouble, but he didn't know how to explain it to Marth in a way the perfect prince would understand. How could he understand what Ike had seen? Was he there when he saw three hundred children of Crimean citizens slaughtered to break their spirit? Was the prince there when the Goddess of Order damned an entire continent to stone for their nature? Did he give the final mercy to those he could not help?

Ike physically shuttered at that last thought and was thankful to whatever fates twisted his dreams that they had not used that dream against him yet.

"You mind has time to think in the darkness, and it goes to places that are reserved for horrors and uncertainty?" Marth asked. Ike nodded, as close to an answer he could give the Altean. "Well, I assume you have already tried sleeping pills and working yourself to the limit so you can collapse on the bed exhausted and brain dead?"

"That I have." Ike stated as he took a drink of the rice wine again, letting it slide down his throat. The burn was gone and replaced with a satisfying numbness to the senses.

Marth put a playful smile on his lips, the idea in his head making him blush as well. "Well, there is something I do back home when I can't fall asleep. If I suffer from insomnia and cannot seem to fall asleep easily or stay asleep like you do, there is one cure I know that will work. I look over to my wife, and ask if she wants to do it. Half hour later, we are sprawled out over each other covered in sweat and neither of us waking up until nine in the morning."

" _Only_ a half hour?" Ike asked, a teasing look on his face as he finished his glass of sake, the numbness multiplying as he did so. "That is your suggestion? Find someone I can maintain a no strings attached relationship with?"

"Like that is an impossibility. Look at you, I mean really look at you." Marth gestured with his free hand. "With that body I am sure that even a yekke like you can find some girl you can sleep with."

"You keep using that word, and I don't think you know what it means." Ike made the quick comment before returning to the subject at hand. "As for the body, you are right. But the trouble is finding someone who would agree to it. Peach would definitely be over me in seconds if she wasn't losing the keys to the linen closet for her and Mario."

Marth nodded and poured Ike another glass. "What about Rosalinda? Cute, shy and, from what I have heard, is getting hormonally frustrated."

"She is cute and smart, but as far as it could go between her and me it is just art appreciation. More over, she is a nocturnal owl and I can't function at night. By the time I would be going to bed, she would be up all night working on something in her arcane laboratory."

Marth snapped his fingers in frustration. "Samus is a no go as we can remember what she did to Chrom when he asked her out with his wedding band on. The Goddess?" Ike shook his head furiously and Marth extended another finger in thinking. "What about the female Robin?"

"Not a chance. Last week I got frustrated with both of them and told both of them to go fuck themselves. I think the took it literally." Ike explained with a contorted look on his face before both him and Marth burst out into a fit of laughter at the taboo thought of it.

"Alright, who do we have left? Sheik could be a female, or a very feminine male, so for now we will count her out. How about Lucina?" Marth asked as he sipped his sake.

"Hearing that from you makes it sound weird. She is your what? Great great granddaughter? It makes you sound like a perverted old man saying that." Ike stated with a slightly disgusted look.

"Alright you win." Marth rapped his finders on the table. "That leaves Zelda."

Ike shook his head, not because he was against the idea. Indeed Zelda was a very good friend of his and were sparing partners, but they were just that. Stuck in the friend zone with over protective royal protector Link keeping it that way. "I have the attack dog to worry about." Ike reminded.

"Right. Well, maybe jerk the gherkin then?" Ike shook his head, which began to feel a bit numb. It hit him there. He had drank before, though it took a lot with his endurance to get there beyond a pleasant buzz. But this was strong, fortified alcohol. If anything was going to put him to sleep it would be this.

"Listen, as much as I enjoy these little talks, I need to get practicing. But before I go, could you give me a clay bottle of that sake? I think it has grown on me." Ike asked as he rose to leave for the training dojos.

Oblivious to his real intentions, Marth happily gave Ike a spare bottle full of liquid sleep.

* * *

Of course, this was it. Zelda opened the cracked and weathered book, looking over the pages with a sort of sinful abandon. This was a book full of long considered heretical blood magics, enthralling spells and other more devious symbols of power. It was supposedly expunged from the face of her kingdom, but here it was, a copy that may have been weathered by the passage of time, but was still very legible.

One page caught her eye, full of old mythos and symbols from a bygone era. She read it out loud, but she heard it resonate in her head. _Summoning Night Terrors_. It was a spell to identify, and if held long enough, allow someone else to strike down the terror that plagued someone's sleep.

But the cost was horrendous. Black magic was always the most powerful, but it was also the most taxing form of magic. Many of the components for the circle she had, but she wondered if she had the appropriate concentration to cast such a spell without surrendering to the madness that made it.

She closed the tome and looked back to the pile of books that offered her nothing but false hopes. Then back to the one in her hands. It was just a dream, did it really require such a way to resolve it?

Zelda shook her head and swore quietly as she held the tome under her arm. Making a few curt gestures with her off hand, she summoned a fractional amount of energy to place the tomes that were placed about back into their original positions.

Once the library was clean, she took a deep breath and steeped out of the library with a beating pulse in her heart. She would not use the tome tonight. But if her hand was forced, she would see the face of her tormenter.

No matter the cost.


	3. Chapter 3

"Helmets on or off?" Ike asked as he adjusted his sword arm to the lighter weight of the training sword in his hand, slightly amazed that they still held their edge despite the numerous training bouts they have endured. For this sparing session, both Ike and Zelda adorned themselves in full armor. Ike had his midnight blue armor while Zelda wore golden armor over her deep purple dress that covered her vitals though still gave her plenty of movement.

"Off. I want to use my senses without being constricted by them." Zelda responded as she drew her own sword and walked to her end of the arena, raising it into a ready stance.

"Agreed. No strikes above the neck then. First of three hits." Ike responded and took his own position and raised his sword into an aggressive battle stance.

"Begin." Zelda commanded Ike, who responded with eagerness as he swung in low with his training gladius as Zelda stabbed her sword down in a make-shift block. It was late in the evening, and of the smashers that were not night owls, they were the only ones up. They skipped their training in the morning while Zelda insisted that she needed to brush up on her arcane knowledge in the library while Ike made his way to Marth for some time to relax. Both spun elaborate lies hiding the true reason why they went there and the ultimate results. And both suspected judging by the way the other acted when asked about it, but at this moment they didn't frankly care.

They were absorbed into their training. Zelda had insisted that she would practice with real swords rather than the pseudo-energy swords that were impossible to effectively wield as all the weight was in the hilt. The gladii they wield were straight and sharp. Ike refused to use Ragnell, using the weapon in the sparing arena would dishonor the weapon and put him at an unfair advantage. The swords were no master-crafted weapons, but they were worthy ones.

Ike responded to Zelda's block and rained down blow after blow as Zelda was forced into a defensive position. She countered with a vicious ripost and set Ike momentarily off balance and she trusted her sword forward, hitting him in the gorget near his neck. The cerulean steel was chipped, and Ike was in temporary shock as Zelda came dangerously close to hitting his face and a foul stroke.

They two turned around and took up ready positions at their end of the sparring arena. "First hit is yours Zelda." Ike tried, and failed, to hide the annoyance from his voice. Once swords were drawn in the sparing arena, titles and rank ceased to have meaning. "Again."

Zelda lunged forward with an over hand chop, and Ike brought up his training sword and blocked the blow. It was a poor swordsman attack, and Zelda knew it. A gladius was a stabbing weapon, and had neither the length or weight for such an attack Zelda just performed. She however countered his block and rammed her shoulder into Ike's chest. It was a move to set him off balance, but he was ready for that. He gripped her shoulder and tossed her back with little effort. Using her kinetic energy, Ike trusted forward, aiming to make a dent in Zelda's battle plate.

Zelda, however, moved through the blade disciplines with ease and slapped the flat of her blade against Ike's right side. She put in a considerable amount of force and sent Ike sprawling to the ground, using his own momentum against him. She fell down onto the ground. Zelda immediately returned to her starting position and did not taunt Ike by offering a hand up. "That makes two." Zelda said with the faintest hint of a smile her princess like demeanor could allow her. Now Ike was burning with shameful anger. He was better than this, even when he had not slept for two days, he was able to excel in fighting multiple times over.

"Again." Ike said this time and Zelda charged, using her lighter and more agile frame to close the distance between the two with amazing ease. Ike set one of his feet back in a stabilizing stance and was more than ready for Zelda, she swung in from the side, and Ike countered the blade and stabbed in from the side. Zelda barely had time to block, it her into an awkward position and Ike pressed this advantage. He rammed his into Zelda's chest and hacked a chip of her armor out.

They returned to their positions and began again. They traded a series of brutal riposts, blocks and attacks of opportunity. A mild layer of beaded sweat formed on their bodies as they pushed each other to limits then more. Where as Zelda could lay a barrage of blows, Ike could weather them and lay more attacks upon her then she could in bursts. As Zelda raised her sword to block an incoming slice, Ike changed sword arm mid flourish and bashed Zelda to her back. Likewise, Ike did not shame her by offering his hand up.

"Evens. Two apiece. Again!" Zelda demanded and they two met in a cascade of sparks. Ike was beginning to feel like his old self, and the familiar strokes and disciplines began to come back to his body. They traded blows and blocks through the battle, each of them worked to keep their balance as well as their guard. Zelda knew that Ike was not holding back, and she would have been ashamed if he did in fact do so. They were here to train against each other, they could have used alloys if they wanted to practice their form and stamina.

The fight looked more like a dance, as each of them used their style to compliment the other. They were locked in a continual cycle as blows met parries and counters were battered away with ease. At last, Zelda thought she saw a hip in Ike's glacier solid defense. She thrusted forward, smiling as Ike didn't respond and her tip hit Ike's lower chest plate. She got the third strike, but as her sword connected she felt a tip dig into her breastplate and noticed that Ike did a reverse handed grip stab.

They looked into each others' eyes for a moment, catching their breath that had seemingly inexplicably escape their lungs. "Stalemate?" Ike asked, to which Zelda responded with another curt nod. They withdrew back to where a set of towels and water awaited them. Zelda had begun to remove parts of her armor, letting her battered and sweat soaked body begin to breath.

Ike reached his sweaty glass of ice water and looked at the Hylian princess removing her armor. He thought about what Marth had said about finding someone for casual sex to put his mind blank and allowing him to get some good sleep. He looked at the princess as she tugged off various pieces of her armor. In many respects, she was the epitome of physical perfection. She was rather slender and lithe, though she did have a rather curvy frame on the hips and ass region. Her skin held a light tan shade of color, and her chest not too big or too small. They were perky and he could see their shape and their nipples through the royal purple silk.

But what really attracted Ike was the hair Zelda had. It was shiny, smooth and no matter what seemed to happen, it always remained the same. He wanted to run his fingers through it, smell the floral scents she washed it with, and feel the softness.

He shook his head and grabbed her glass of water. He walked over to her as she finished smoothing her dress out. "Here, this might help quench your thirst." He held out the cold water and Zelda looked around, her eyes catching his and he swore he could have seen a hit of mischievous play in her eyes. She rose and took the glass. She threw here head back and drank as if she had not taken a sip of water in days. She finished the glass of the liquid and left only ice in it.

"Thank you Ike. But I do not think that will be all to quench my thirst." Ike was confused and cocked an eyebrow. Zelda made her point abundantly clear when she threw herself upon Ike, catching the mercenary commander off guard and tackling him to the ground. She straddled him and held his hands above his head in a playful manner, her face inches from his. "I think we should try some other form of sparring. Would you agree, hm?"

"Zelda, you playful minx." Ike said with the roguish smile he could conjure up. Zelda smiled and leaned in to kiss him. Her lips were soft as satin, and the roamed Ike's lips with a measure of experience. Some of her sweat had trickled down her face and creased her lips, giving an erotic saltiness to her kisses.

Her tongue pressed against his mouth, which Ike opened to invite her in. Their tongues began their own spar, battling for dominance. Ike felt his pants grow extremely tight around the belt line and Zelda must have notice it as well. She removed one of her hands that were holding Ike's hands above his head and began to massage the bulge. Ike saw a look of surprise in her eyes as he felt her hand touch his member through the cloth of his pants. He heard her whimper in anticipation and he decided to change positions.

With a bestial grunt, he flipped her over, still kissing all the while. He was kneeling over her now, his own hand holding both of her arms aside. With his free hand, he explored her body through the soft and relenting silk. He stopped at her bodice and gripped one of her breasts, forcing a groan to escape Zelda's lips. They broke the kiss, both were panting now, and Zelda looked to Ike's hand as he began to manipulate the tender flesh. "Enough." She moaned and Ike stopped his ministration and looked into her eyes with one of confusion. "I...aha can't get enough through these clothes. Let me help you with them."

There, Ike saw Zelda being to peal her dress off. He gazed down into-

"Ike!" Zelda's voice was raised and it followed the sound of her snapping her fingers. Ike shook his head, and felt his eyes adjust to the surroundings. Zelda, fully clothed and standing with both of her hands on her hips. "Earth to Ike, do you respond?"

He shook his head again, as if he was trying to dispel the images that plagued his eyes. "Sorry, princess, I must have spaced off. Sleep has been evading me and after that surprisingly brutal training must have forced my eyes to go else where."

She smiled sadly, likewise suffering the same thing. Though she would not mention it, when Ike was patting himself down and drinking, she pictured him without his clothing. She wanted to see all of that hard muscle he hid under his armor, to taste his sweat and lose herself in him. She had violently shaken her head to dispel the shameful lust that at crept into her mind. She locked that emotion back in it's place and returned to the real world. It was a vein daydream, but one of the best dreams she has had in a considerable amount of time. "I see. Well, hopefully you are worn out enough to close your eyes and enter deep sleep." _Din knows I can't do it_.

Ike nodded, appreciating that Zelda cared. He took her gladuis and hung it up with his before turning for the door and held in open. "Ladies first."

Zelda smiled appreciatively and walked through the door as Ike flicked off the lights. Oth of them headed back to their rooms, to the place neither of them really wanted to go.

* * *

Zelda stepped out of the shower and patted herself off with a fresh towel. Her feet relaxed as she hit the warmed marble. Tying the towel around her body, she began to retie her hair. She looked into the mirror as her makeup washed away, revealing the bloodshot eyes and dark circles under her eyes. The dreams had certainly began to take their toll on her. Physically she was beginning to show the damages, as well as mentally. She knew that she could only hide it for so long. Link was even mentioning if she was alright when she almost tripped over her own feet as she exited the library as he was heading in.

"It is only a bad dream. Nothing more." Zelda reassured her image as she moved on to her second braid. She kept on repeating that as if she could convince herself of that. This too would pass, and there would be nothing left to trouble her. Maybe it was a phase all people went through as they came of age.

As she finished in, she moved out of the bathroom into her bedroom, and let the towel fall to the ground as she slipped into the comfort of a cotton nightgown. Laying on her nightstand was the damned book and she felt a shudder pass over her spine as she laid down her bed. That book promised her a way to destroy her nightmare, but what new horror would replace it when she used that magic? She didn't want to think about it, but losing one enemy and having it replaced by another was nothing she wanted to do.

She slipped under the sheets and closed her eyes. Hopefully there was no more dream that would be out for her blood.

But hope is nothing but the first step down the long road to disappointment.

* * *

Ike finished his glass of sake and looked down at the comfort his own bed seemed to sing too him. He had shed all of his clothes and crawled into bed naked. His head felt numbed from the sake and he hoped that it was enough to keep him asleep.

As he crawled into bed, he felt something stir in him. Damn Marth and his suggestions. His bed felt bigger than he had remembered it. He would like it if someone else was in it, sprawled out after calling each others' names. Zelda would look nice in it, and the more he though of other female smashers, the more she looked better.

But there was the friend zone that kept him away, and that damnable blond wolf who protected his princess from anyone and everyone. So unless by some stroke of luck that she felt the same and that Link should back off, he was damned to stay in the friend zone.

Even as he slipped into unconsciousness, he began to pleasure himself to the image of her, and her beautiful squeaks of pleasure.


	4. Chapter 4

_She was running again. Through the smoke that flung itself at her with reckless abandon and blood that flowed from her dress._

 _The thing still chased her, slowly but as sure as the tide. Zelda dashed through the burning remains of her castle. Everything that could be burned was ablaze with heat and flame. There was no chance of respite. Her leather sandals were charred and blisters formed on her calves, bursting in the raging inferno that engulfed everything she held dear. Even the granite slabs of stone were smoldering and producing an unnatural gray unlight that was the hottest of all._

 _"_ _What is the matter, little witch? Afraid to face an old friend?" The voice of her tormenter followed her as she continued to run. Fear, in all of its power, struck her with an almost physical force and lent the speed and strength that she would need to continue to evade the thing. Why was she afraid of this thing? She couldn't understand or comprehend the thing or the motives it had, but it was confined to her dreams!_

 _It couldn't harm her in the real world beyond the mental strain it put on her. So why was she afraid as if it could shatter her soul over it's knee? Perhaps it could, but so far all it had done was hunt her down and 'kill' her in this dream._

 _So why was she afraid? She was Zelda Harkinian, damn it! Lady Regent of Hyrule, Appointed Princess of the Three Goddesses, Chosen of Destiny and Sorceress Supreme. She would not, nay_ _ **will**_ _not allow such a trivial nightmare to control her life. Even though her body was covered with open and cooking sores that wracked her body, she would not allow herself to surrender to death._

 _Though her body was weak, her mind was strong and willing to stand against the darkness and whatever hid under it. Even though her sheath of flesh begged her to lie down and embrace the infinite_ _nothingness of death, she would not._

 _She stopped running and spun around to face her tormenter, hands balled into fists at her side. "What is the matter, little girl? Tired of running from the inevitable?" The voice wafted to her, with the sickening sound of cracking bones. Flames ate at her clothing, burning previously untarnished skin and_ _charring the already damaged skin._

 _"_ _I am not afraid of you, beast." The flames died down as she stood her ground looking into the ever shifting shadows of her hunter. The background faded away into pools of blackness. The dark smokey form began to take the shape of a humanoid, the same height of Zelda. "You are confided to my dreams. You cannot and will not be able to harm my physical form. You only have as much power as I give you. And I say you have no power over me. Not any more."_

 _Zelda could sense the feeling that if her tormenter had eyes, one would be twitching. "Wrong, whore." A blur of smoking essence smacked Zelda across the face, sending bloody spittle flying from her mouth. "Everything you do is done out of fear. You studied magic because you were afraid of being a disappointment in your mother's eyes. You became the Lady Regent of Hyrule because you were afraid the nation would collapse without your bloodline."_

 _Another metaphysical fist collided in Zelda's chest, and it sent her sprawling on all all fours. A river of blood rushed up through her stomach and it flowed unto the ground in thick puddles. "You became a smasher because you were afraid of becoming just another pretty face to admire and fuck. You reigned in your emotions because you were afraid of how you would look in other eyes. And you hid your love for the mercenary because you were afraid of surrendering all you have ever known to some brute."_

 _"_ _Get… Get behind me demon!" Zelda yelled with all the strength she could muster. "I am not afraid of you! You have no power-urk!" She was lifted from the floor and brought to what she assumed was the face of the beast. It lapped up the blood that fell from her chin._

 _"_ _There is no 'demons' or 'goddesses'. There is us, and only us." The thing laughed, and Zelda's head felt as if it would shatter_ _into nothingness at the wrongness of the sound. "The only monsters are the ones we make!" She felt iron rupture her lungs and she screamed in pain and horror._

* * *

Zelda awoke screaming, sweat ran down in rivers from her forehead, covering her entire body in a thick film. There was something in her mouth and in a very un-princess like manner, she spat it out into the cold moonlight.

She recoiled in horror as she saw the deep crimson tint to the spit. She tasted the coppery-iron flavor blood had erupted from her mouth and it flowed onto her white silken sheets. Blood, bile, and other less savory fluids stained her bed spread as Zelda ran for her bathroom. She turned on the lights and tore the nightgown free from her body and looked over her body.

Her hand brushed up against her ribs and let out a sharp squeak of pain as she felt the bruised bone. No, it couldn't have happened. Dreams didn't harm her, they couldn't have harmed her. She looked into the mirror. Bloody bile had already began to cake her chin and her lips were stained from the fluid. She turned on the water with shaking hands and began to wash her face. That is when she noticed her face beginning to shake, and she realized that she was crying.

She collapsed on the floor, and began to wail like a banshee. Fresh tears fell from her face in rapid succession. She screamed out and curled up into a ball, continuing to cry. Nobody would hear or care for that matter, there was only her and the tormenter in her head to hear her. She cried until her eyes could produce no more tears, until her stomach was sick and she felt that she would throw up again.

Still sobbing, she rose to her weak feet and began to move to her nightstand. There, the black ledger lay, the pages seemingly calling to her. With numbed hands, she picked it up and opened the book to the pages needed.

This was it. She was going to commit grievous crimes against nature. She could not contact anyone to help her with this endeavor. They would be physically disgusted, uncaring, or simply not worth taking the risk. She, and she alone, would summon this beast and she alone would be the to see the true face of her tormenter.

She knew that it would not ease her, but it would give her the strength to find the proper way to destroy it. If indeed she could actually destroy it.

The regents were on hand, the moon was strong, and she had the desperation to push her mental walls to their very limit. May the Godesses forgive her.

* * *

 _Ike kicked in the door, his muscles ached from the battle raging above him but the adrenaline that pushed his body to new limits dulled the pain that raged in his body. Above, the rebellion battered away the well trained Daien army, though they would not maintain that edge for long if Ike did not rejoin his mercenaries. Though he had to leave them for a few moments. He felt his instincts goad him into investigate this place the Royal Guard fiercely_ _defended. After a fair amount of time leading an army, he knew to respect the his gut feelings._

 _The smell was what hit him first when he entered the large single room. He had seen m any horrors in his lifetime, but his other senses knew what evil was like. The smell that wafted to his nostrils was the sickly sweet smell of physical and spiritual decay. Of ruined flesh and blistered souls. He spat the taste that formed in his mouth out and looked around at what he saw._

 _This was no prison._ _No, it was a place for Ahsnard's bloody pleasures. The living and dead hanged from the gains that adorned the walls. Many were little more that skeletons with skins dragging in the breath to their ragged lungs. Political dissenters, captured Crimean soldiers, and others unfortunate enough to cross the vengeful anger of the bastard king._

 _"_ _Please… help us." One of the living skeletons looked over to Ike, who had sheathed Ragnell once he was confident that there was no immediate threat. He was no doctor of medicine or one gifted with the healing magics, but Ike knew endurance when he saw it. He looked at each of the still living bodies. What strength they had to keep their lives tethered to the world was minimal. They would not last much longer. The food they would need to survive was great, and it would take away from the already meager supplies his army had._

 _Yet at the same time he could not just leave them to this fate. What he did here would remain here. He was too far away from the army for them to know what happened here unless he talked._

 _The ugly truth presented itself to Ike and he swallowed hard as he knew what needed to be done. He reached to his side and pulled free a small dirk he used only in an emergency. He approached the first one, a frail old man who looked as if he had not seen the light of day for ages. He looked up into Ike's eyes from his rack. The eyes were strong but those chips of amber gazed to the knife Ike had in his hand. "You… you are our executioner?" His voice was raspy, but it was strong._

 _Ike nodded solemnly. "Sometimes death is the only mercy we have left to give." In that sentence, the grandfather relaxed, knowing that his pain would be over soon. "You will not feel a thing."_

 _"_ _I already feel nothing." The man responded and Ike placed his spare hand over the old man's eyes. He gripped the dagger in a downward angle. He drove the knife into the throat of the man, who convulsed for three seconds as his life force sprayed all over Ike, who clenched his eyes shut to block the innocent blood from his eyes._

 _The man's body relaxed and the life was gone from him. Ike ran the hand down his face and that of his victim. He closed the man's eyes and looked to the others. They looked at Ike with cold passionless eyes of hollowed acceptance He wanted to ask for their forgiveness, but knew that they would not give him any._

 _Ike walked up to the next one with the same dagger. He would not sully Ragnell with this grim necessity of war. His next man was a soldier, and raised his head to expose his neck. "Thank you." He whispered as Ike repeated the process with him._

* * *

Ike bolted up in his bed, breath having long since left his lungs. Of all the dreams he would have seen, why was it that one? It was one he had locked away in the deepest part of his subconscious. A grim reality of what he had done and needed to be done. No one knew the secret burden he carried in his life, no one could pry that secret from his jaws.

He tossed the sheets aside and walked out into the cool light of the moon. Before that dream had came to him, he was with Zelda. They had continued where his sparring session had ended. She had dominated him through the majority of it, though she was crying out Ike's name more than Ike was doing for the Hylian princess. Though as she road him, her throat erupted in a shower of crimson. As her body slumped to the ground and Ike saw that damnable dirk he had tossed into the river after the dark deed fall into his lap, the image faded into the nightmare that Ike had repressed for so long.

Ike shook his head and turned back to the bottle of sake that sat on his table. He ignored it for the moment and walked over to his nightstand, where the bottle of dream repressing pills laid. Snatching them with an unusual vigor, he pulled three of the pills free and moved to the rice wine. He poured himself a glass of the intoxicating liquid and popped the pills in his mouth, following it down with the sake.

It was crazy to do that. He had read too many stories of people killing themselves, intentionally or not with the pill and alcohol mixture. But if pills worked only half the time, and the sake worked half the time, he would need to mix both.

He moved back into his bed and looked up. Why did he dream of Zelda? She was sexy and his daydream before really showed that he was aching to release the pent up sexual frustration into her. But in his dream turned nightmare, he cradled her as the blood left her veins weeping like some grandmother. Did he… care for her, more than lust? The carnal desire was very evident, but there was something else.

She was the thought on his mind as it blacked out into nothingness, into a sleep without dreams.

* * *

Zelda knelt in the center of the chamber, a circle drawn around her in the dust of ancients and another one not far from her. There her tormenter would be. Hoarfrost lined her walls, the unnaturally frozen air molecules cracked like agitated ice. "By my blood… am I made." Zelda uttered the words under great duress.

Pain she thought she could have never enured, even beyond her dreams, wracked her body. Her fingers were dug knuckle deep in to the bamboo. Blood dripped from her nose, striking the floor with a regular rhythm. Each droplet thundered in her mind like the firing of a cannon. It took all of her training, all of her focus to stay conscious. She would see the end. She would know the face of her torturer. "By my blood… am I armed."

The unseen figure revealed itself. Walking from the shadows and into the middle of the other circle. Smoke exhausted from Zelda's pores, wafting to the circle and giving the creature form. It resembled a black armored warrior, much akin to that of the Hylian Royal Guard of old. But its armor was covered in the bloody and debased symbols of the damned. "By my blood..."

The figure laughed, and Zelda noted that there was a female tone to the voice. "By my blood will I triumph!" She yelled the words, her magical gifts, lending volume to her voice. The creature removed the helmet and looked upon Zelda.

No… it couldn't be. It was _HER_ face. The interloper laughed again, her voice reflecting Zelda's perfectly and opened her mouth full of perfect teeth to roar. " **From your blood are monsters born**!" A violent wind dispelled all of the dust before it disappeared into the nothingness that spawned it. The smoke forced itself down Zelda's throat.

The debased power physically picked Zelda up and threw her back against her head board to the bed. As Zelda blacked out, she tapped the last of her strength and mentally shouted for aid. " _Royal protector!_ "


	5. Chapter 5

"Relax your majesty. Let the potion do its work." Link, the Royal Protector and Sword of Hyrule, forced out his hand to gently pin Zelda to her bed. He had been standing over her for the past five hours and what little sleep he had bled away from him like a lacerating wound. But yet he still remained vigilant over his leader.

She, however, was not in any mood to be waited upon. "Link, I have told you that I am fine. The potion has ran its course through my body. I am fine." It was another one of her lies. She felt better yes, but she was far from fine. She had seen what could only be described as pure terror. Her body and mind still ached from the intense biological rigors, but she did not need to be forced back into bed like some nine year old.

When he came in and saw her lying in a fetal position, blood and bile covering her bed, he cleaned her immediately. After a bath and changing of sheets, he stood sentinel over her until she came back to consciousness. She half lied to him when she said a violent nightmare attacked her and she lost control of her body in terror. Zelda could not and would not tell even Link what she truly saw. No one but her would have that burden to bear.

"It is my job to look out for what is best for you, to protect you. And I will not fail in that department." Link asserted and kept his hand where it was. Mentally, Zelda groaned in utter annoyance. Even with changed sheets, she couldn't help but feel the memories of last night wash over her as long as she remained sitting in there. It was an illusion, it could not be her. She was better than this. Obviously whatever was in her head was just using her weakened state to throw it off balance.

"Do not forget I can just as easily remove you of that position with nothing more than a pen stroke." She reminded him. He looked down to her eyes and sighed, allowing Zelda to sit straight up. "I am master of my senses still, Link."

"Sometimes I seriously doubt that, your majesty." Link's candid attitude was one of the traits Zelda both admired him for and hated him for. Still, if she surrounded herself with advisers who only said yes all the time, there wouldn't be a kingdom left for her to govern as the Lady Regent. "I think it is best if her Ladyship would miss sparing today and take bed rest. Apparently these nightmares stir something in your body that it violently reacts to."

Zelda shook her head. "Link, the longer I stay in this bed the more I think about my problems. The more I think about my problems, the worse I become. See the vicious cycle? If I want to get out of bed and spar with Ike, then by Din's hot arse I _**will**_ spar with him."

She rose out of her bed, though she was uneasy from being cooped up in an awkward position once she lost her consciousness. Link instantly rushed to her and held her steady. "See, Lady Regent? Your body is wounded and it needs to heal. I need to have a Princess who is well rested and will not wear herself down sparing with a lazy mercenary."

"In my defense," Ike said as he opened the door that was left open with a crack, "I am just one of those who do not really enjoy the added burden of royal titles."

Link grunted in annoyance. "Does the borec know how to knock before opening a door?"

"The door was already open and I heard everything. If Zelda wants to practice, then you should allow her to spar if she wants." Ike spoke but Zelda bowed her head and placed her spare hand on her forehead as Link spun around with a look of pure venom on his face. Of all the things Link hated with a passion, referring to Zelda without her proper titles or with said titles in front of her name was a good start to end up missing a few teeth.

"Speak those words again, mercenary swine, and I swear you will be done eating solid food." Link grabbed Ike by the loose tunic hanging from his chest. Ike seemed a bit clumsy, and Link sniffed Ike's breath, trying to smell the alcohol he knew would be there. Unfortunately, he found none. "I will protect her majesty from all threats to her well being. I respect your sword arm but you will not threaten a strained Queen with your sparring. And advert you gaze from her majesty, you are not worthy to see her in her nightgown."

"Link, I have seen Zelda in her risque string sun-bathing bikini. I doubt the nightgown is much more sinful then that." The words came from Ike's mouth and as soon as Link heard them he balled his fist, cracking all the knuckles in them and was about to deliver a smooth fist in Ike's stomach.

"Link, leave us." Zelda uttered the command through clenched teeth. She knew Link meant well, but a spar would take her mind off of the fact that her mind was warped. "That is an order." Link looked back to her, his objection promptly dying on his lips. He was still a servant to the throne, and if Zelda commanded him, then her will would be done.

He released his grip on Ike, the mercenary seemingly oblivious to what happened. "As you wish. I will be in my quarters if you need my assistance." He turned to Zelda, made the emblem of the triforce on his chest using both of his hands' index finger, middle finger and thumb. He clicked his boots together and left Zelda and Ike alone.

Ike cracked a dry smile as Link left. There was some bad blood between the two swordsmen because where as Link threw himself in to responsibility, Ike chose to refrain from the limelight and the troubles that came with it. It was true that Ike had commanded armies and if he had played his politicking cards right, he would be a true Lord, some even whispered King. But he remained a simple mercenary. Some respected him immensely for the humbleness that he showed. Others, like Link who had no fewer then thirty different royal positions and a real pain in the ass for that matter, saw him as a slacker. Link respected Ike for his battle honors and visa versa. That didn't mean the two had to like each other.

Ike stepped into the room, noticing the overwhelming smell of mint. "Someone has been cleaning in here." Ike made the comment as the mint sent his mind into overdrive as he fought off the hangover headache from the pills and the sake. He looked over to Zelda, who smiled with a somewhat apologetic look to it.

Something felt off as Ike looked at her. Granted her nightgown showed off her assets in a nice way and felt his crotch stir at the thoughts, something was missing. Last night he swore that he felt an actual connection with her, beyond the simple drive for primal sex. But as he looked at her in nothing but a simple cotton short nightgown, obviously no bra on, and the shy 'girl next door' attitude, he could not sense that connection.

Perhaps it was the sake. As a mercenary, he had been no stranger to alcohol but had not gotten as drunk as he did last night. He had seen, however, both men and women so intoxicated by ale that lust was confused for romantic love. Perhaps in hindsight, that is what happened to him last night. Her speaking interrupted his thoughts. "I am so sorry about Link earlier. He has been on edge since I summoned him last night."

"Nonononono. Calling me a swine, lazy at that as well?" Ike let loose a laugh. "This is a good day for him apparently." Zelda laughed, it was a good feeling to have it pass through her. She could have almost forgotten the horror that stripped nights of her peaceful dreams… almost.

"Such a wit about you, Ike. Oh how the land of Tellius must be quiet and dull without you. Now I will join you in a moment, but please," she gently pushed him out of the room and closed the door as she began to tug off her dress, "let me change for now."

* * *

"Ready for sword practice again?" Ike asked, his head still cloudy from the mixture of sake and pills from last night. He looked over to Zelda who had opted to wear a black dress along with her imbued gloves. They had just gotten done with practicing their traditional fighting methods and she beat him like a runaway slave. His coordination were there as well as the discipline, but the intense headache and the pulsing beat of his heart behind his eyes made everything be felt to the nth degree.

"No Ike. I feel as if my sword arm is strong enough." Zelda responded as she pulled her gloves down further her arms and smoothed her dress. "I would suggest archery practice, if you wouldn't mind that."

Ike grunted, the equivalent of a verbal shrug. "Perhaps, but I haven't used a bow with arrows for a good set of years. It would necessary be training, but you yelling at me all the time while I try to hit a target."

Zelda chuckled at this as she pulled a long recurved bow of Hylian design from the rack and produced a quiver full of arrows. She notched one and pulled it back as she took aim at a stationary target at the far end of the training hall. "Center of the target." She called her shot and lined up the imaginary line. Effortlessly, she pulled back the arrow and let it fly.

 _Thunk!_ The arrow became lodged in the center of the target. Zelda lowered her bow and allowed herself to relax for a few seconds before repeating the process again three more times. Notching, aiming, firing, and relaxing. Each time the arrow found their mark as she called it. "Third ring on the left." _Thunk!_ "The edge of the eighth right." _Thunk!_ "Down the middle of my first arrow." _Snakp!_

She lowered her bow and held it off to Ike, who picked his jaw up off the floor. "You try. Don't worry about calling the shots, just try to hit the target." Ike took the bow and notched his first arrow in the string. He looked at the large target, ten rings zeroing in on the bulls eye. He raised the bow and tried to line up the shot, ignoring the pain of focusing on such a small target. He tried to pull back the bow string but it took a considerable amount of strength. More than he expected and he almost toppled forward as it set him off balance.

He stopped and focused on his target. He let loose the arrow and it sang forth, hitting the edge of the target and the cord snapped against his exposed wrist. "Well, you can hit the target, but your feet are all wrong. Spread them out more to afford you some balance, not slapped together like some lineman."

"Yes, Zelda." Ike said, with a slight mocking tone in his voice. He repeated the process after spacing his feet out to about his shoulder length. It felt a bit better pulling the bow back but still, the arrow was way off target.

Zelda shook her head, and was about to speak again until she felt a cold wave cascade across her body. Everything became numb. Her fingers, her feet, even her tongue became numb. She felt… different. Her mind and body felt slightly uneasy, but not in a sickly way. Given the way her sleep habits had been these past few days, she was surprised that she didn't feel this way sooner. It was a sign of weariness in her body that was given voice. She finally managed to work her tongue, and walked over to Ike. "A bit better, but there is still one big problem with your form. Here." She walked up behind him and placed her hands around him. "Draw." He pulled back the bow and Zelda forced her hands to press in at the necessary points. As her hands moved to his pectoral muscles and belt line, she felt the cold numbness give away to something… molten. An urge to throw caution to the wind, or in her current case what little there was. Zelda began to lose all sensation of reality, and everything became dream like. She could not feel her aching muscles and all other pain was wiped away from her. She smirked, but Ike couldn't see it. "Line up the target, and if you hit the center, I'll show you another trick."

Ike didn't notice the change of tone in Zelda's voice, obliged and lined up the target. His muscles relaxed, his breathing became steady. Now, he focused on nothing else than him and his target. Slowly releasing breath, he let the arrow fly. _Thunk!_ The arrow slammed into the board and punctured the left edge of the center circle but it was still a hit regardless.

"Alright Princess. What is this other-mhphg!" Ike's sentence was cut off from Zelda aggressively crashing her lips against his. With a strength unknown that she had, she slammed Ike against a wall. She was rough and primal with the kiss, and Ike used his own lips to push back to catch some breath. He looked down into Zelda's eyes, and he noticed that the typical emerald eyes took on a much lighter viridian green hue that seemed to almost glow as if it was some eldrich magic No, it was just a trick of the light. She was strong enough to hold back any enchantment spell. "Zelda, what has-"

"Shhh. No talking." She gave him a quick peck on the lips as she moved her body against his. The friction was obviously having the intended affect on Ike, but still his mind fought against the reality in front of him that this was Zelda. "I want you to meet the real me. The one behind the regal mask, the one who wants what you wants." Saying those words, she seductively pulled off her silken gloves and tossed him aside. Not a moment before Ike gave into his own bestial urges.

They met again, kissing in another spar for dominance. The same backlash from the sake now heightened Ike's sense of touch as he explored Zelda's exposed skin. "What took this Zelda so long to see the light of day?" He asked playfully in between kisses. She chuckled and Ike dropped the bow he had unknowingly held on to. It fell to the ground, and Zelda made sure that her dress would follow.

In a scene Ike could not imagine in his dreams, Zelda released the cords behind her back and the dress fell round her ankles. She wore undergarments, virgin white as an offset to the sinful black dress she wore. Ike smiled with a hungry intent and went on the offensive, wrapping his arms around Zelda's waist and pulling her close. She in turn began to even the score, removing straps for his plate armor. They likewise toppled to the ground in an unorganized pile and she then tore open his tunic, revealing the muscles she had secretly fantasized about for so long. She ran her fingers over the rippling muscle and began to suck on his collarbone, tasting the luxurious sweat. His scent drew her over the edge and she began to fumble for his belt. "Please let me help you with that." He whispered in her ear, licking the points of them, enticing another moan from her lips.

Both of their hands tussled over the long strip of cloth that kept Ike's pants up and his manhood hidden. She managed to undo the knot but as she began to loosen, her head physically jolted forward and rammed into Ike's shoulder. She opened her eyes and the glowing green was gone and now remained only the dark emeralds which were now wide with shock. "Hurk." She gave a sound that relates to someone getting gut punched as the wind rushed out of her. She saw Ike, body language displaying full arousal and lustful demeanor. His armor laid on the ground and that fantastic chest of his was for her to see. She looked down on the ground and then realized that her dress and gloves laid there in the pile of clothing as well. "What… what did you do?" She asked in a horse voice.

"What did I do? The question should be what did _you_ do?" Ike's mind was still fogged by lust and and difficult time coming back down. "You attacked me and began to tear of my clothes and then your own."

"No. I would not do that. Be honest. I know you are a hot blooded man and it would be reasonable you would wish to lay with me but-" Zelda stumbled over her words as she began to slip back on her dress.

"Are you mad?" Ike was feeling his temper rising, partly because their moment had been interupted and because Zelda was now trying to pin her carnal desires on him. "You were the one trying to get into my pants. You were trying to taste my muscles and-"

"Shut up!" Zelda snapped like a twig. "I am in complete control of my emotions. I do not need you to try and have your way with me like you just tried to do. How dare you?! Taking advantage of me in my weakened state!"

"Lady, you have lost your mind!" Ike lost his own restraint as well and got up right into Zelda's face. "You attacked me, not I attacking you. You seduced me and until you jerked your head back, to get what I assume is the little sense you have left back, you looked eager to jerk me off!"

A powerful open palm slammed into Ike's cheek. However, there was an intense burning sensation that caused a cry of pain to briefly escape his lips. He touched the cheek and felt crisped skin and first degree burns covering his cheek. He looked to Zelda, who was looking at her own hand that slapped him with unrestrained horror. Din's fire encompassed her hand, then it changed to lightning, and then to water. Zelda's other hand began the same process, in seemingly random order.

Smoke came from her arms and soon the process was over. Zelda looked frightened, more so than Ike had ever seen her before. She meant to slap him, but not with that force and power behind it She ran away, her eyes swelling up with tears. She left Ike along, with a burned face, a bitter heart, and the thirst for a drink.


	6. Chapter 6

Zelda slammed the door behind her and locked it with shaking hands. Her head pounded like an immense headache was threatening to bust her skull open. She sank down onto the ground against the door. What was happening to her? Was what Ike said true? Did she lose all control of herself and not only gave in to carnal desires that she had long since locked away or the powers she controlled manifested on their own accord?

She buried her face into her hands and bitterly wept. She was stronger than this. It took eras for darkness to swallow Hyrule's light and she was there to see it glow ever more radiant as the new Lady Regent. She had honed her magical abilities much as a warrior might hone his aim with a crossbow or train his sword arm. She had pushed herself beyond all limits her mother had set and exceeded them. The nightmares she suffered then from pushing the new boundaries were nothing compared to the monster who claimed to be her that stalked the dark recess of her mind stealing not only sleep but her self control as well.

Zelda felt the tears fall through her fingers and hit the hardened bamboo floors, striking the floor with the same rhythm as her blood did only a few short hours ago. Power, it worked both ways. She had the abilities that many could not even hope of attaining, let alone wielding them with such ease. If she could not control her powers, then they would cause immense harm not only to her but as well as everyone else around her. The fire that erupted from her hands when she slapped Ike would not have just given him a nasty singe, but could have burned straight to the bone.

But it was not her fault! No, it could not. That… sellsword who she lusted after took advantage of her in her weakened state. Din be praised that she came back to reality before they went any further. As tempting as it would be to lay with the mercenary (on her own accord and not just his), she could not risk soiling herself with someone viewed as a lesser race. It was taboo enough that she could even consider such a thing, let alone even committing it. _But he does have quite the body, and if his stamina is anything like the type he fights you with-_

She shook her head, tears of frustration still flowing down her chin as she shook the thought from her head. That thought was not her own! Lust was meant for pleasure girls who would suck cocks of equally lustful men for a single rupiee. She was ruler of the Kingdom of Light! She would not have such emotions rule her.

She rose, her legs initially feeling weak as she moved to the sink. She turned on the hot water and began to scrub away at her hands. She could still smell the smoke that bled from her hands after she brutally singed Ike's face. It was not the sweet smell that one would expect from burning ceder or even tobacco smoke it was something else. Something wholly unnatural. Every time she smelled it, the aroma churned her stomach and thought she was going to throw up again.

She applied more pressure to her hands as the hot water steam began to cover the cold metal bars and mirror in front of her. She rubbed her arms with a rich lavender bar of soap, sighing in frustration as she washed the suds off in an attempt to remove any smoke that still lingered on her skin. She looked around in the corner of her vision, noting the veil of darkness that seemed to coalesce around her. She shook her head and passed it off as nothing more than tiredness nipping at her.

 _ **Tap tap tap**_ _._ The sound practically caused her to jump in surprise and looked around. She was alone, there was no one else here. In addition, she could not hear that sound from outside her room as there was plenty of soundproofing material that kept the ruckus of the children and the more primitive smashers away. She continued to scan the room, half-hoping to find an explanation for the sudden noise. Zelda didn't realize she held her breath in suspense until she exhaled gratefully. She shook her head free of such nonsensical sounds and continued to wash her hand.

 _ **Tap tap tap**_. There it was again. Zelda walked out of the bathroom with the hot water still running and looked around her locked room. Everything was as she had left it. Nothing was misplaced, no windows were open, and there were no varmints running around the bedroom. She had no clock that would make such a sound, neither did she have a tempo keeper for a piano. She scratched her head and very violently shook it. Tiredness was attacking her and it made her question reality around her.

 _ **Tap tap tap**_. Zelda's heart sank to her chest when she not only heard the tapping noise again, but realized where it was coming from. In a very zombie like fashion, she walked back into the bathroom and shut off the water. The flow of steaming water abated and she looked into the fog covered mirror and swallowed hard.

 _ **Tap tap tap**_. There it was. It was coming from behind the mirror. With shaking hand, Zelda mopped away the steam seeing only glass an-

Zelda screamed and jumped back, bashing her head against a high hanging towel bar. There, looking back at her through the mirror was the monster who haunted her dreams in her form. The steam produced fog on the mirror bled away as hoarfrost began to line the mirror. She saw the copy of her, dressed in a blood crimson dress that showed off much of her stomach and sides of her legs. She smiled, as if the mirror was taunting the frightened Zelda. The copy then taped the center of the mirror where the cracks from the heat change met and the massive circle of reflective glass shattered into a hundred pieces.

Zelda ran out of the bathroom as the glass fell, slamming the door and running to the center of the room. She shook her head. No, this wasn't real this is all a lie!

 _Stupid girl!_ She stock stock still as she heard her own voice yell in her mind. All around her, the room seemed to buckle inward, cracking windows as the temperature began to plummet to an almost arctic tundra. Zelda sank to the crumbling bamboo floors as fresh tears welled up in her face. _Your entire life has been a lie!_

Zelda tasted the tang of supercharged ozone in the air near her and looked down in between her fingers. Not by her own will were there strands of electricity that flowed between them like the web of aquatic creatures. She became as white as a sheet and looked around despritely. _Royal Protector! Royal Protector!_ The voice taunted her, but Zelda used the last of her control to push those words into Link's mind, who was merely a few halls away. But with the last of her power spent, the lightning wracked her body, sending pangs of pain through her entire frame

Her screams were the last thing she heard before her room erupted into chaos.

* * *

Ike threw back his head and slammed down another crystal cut glass of sake. Shaking his head as the alcohol worked its way down his stomach. Already he had drank three of these tall glasses and already had he begun to feel the burn and numbness of the alcohol. What a prissy little bitch, that one.

Ike massaged the dulled ache of his burned cheek, which had subsided in the pain-blocking alcohol. He poured himself yet another glass and resumed his drinking. His vision was becoming foggy, his mind was becoming a liquid and he wanted nothing more than to keep it up until he blacked out. Or until he forgot what a shy cock tease Zelda was. Which ever came first.

The was a rap on his door, it was feminine but it held the strength of a sword arm behind it. "The door opens." Ike called as he took a sip of the spirits.

Marth walked in the doorway and looked at Ike who was seated at a duel table with another chair. "Ike, you forgot our meeting today. I went to go check on the dojos but you weren't there." Marth walked through the door and strode over to Ike who gestured for the Altean prince to sit. "I see you have acquainted yourself with the sake. I hope you have developed a taste for it."

"I have, help yourself to a glass if you want." Ike stated before throwing his head back and downing the rest of his full glass. Marth winced as Ike drank the expensive rice wine like that, though he did not make a mention of it. Marth poured a small glass full of the wine and began to swish it back and forth in his glass. He looked to Ike who yet again began to pour himself more sake. Marth looked to Ike, who seemed flushed from the drink but he soon realized that what he had saw as a trick of the light was indeed a patch of extremely red skin.

"Drinking to mend a broken heart?" Marth asked offhandedly and gestured to the patch of burned skin. Ike shot Marth a death glare and went back to his drinking. "Speaking from experience, this sake does not help you with that. Rather, it only makes things worse than better. Because when you surrender yourself-"

"Cut the philosophical bullshit, Marth. It makes my brain a briny soup and dulls the pain. It works like a charm." Ike stated and took a big gulp of the rice wine. "That is all that matters right now."

"So focused on the present, the future is going to blindside you." Marth stated as he pushed the alcohol away from Ike, who reached for the clay bottle. "Ike, no one is worth beating yourself up over. Not even Zelda." Ike raised an eyebrow at that statement. "I have been slapped by her on more than one occasion, I know what her palm imprint looks like."

"Leave it alone, Marth." Ike said with a bit of warning behind his voice as he drank the traditional spirit. "You were not there and you do not know what happened so leave it alone."

"What happened wasn't your fault. I have seen Zelda, and I have woken up to one of her soundproof piercing screams before on many occasions. And that is torturing her, I feel it in my bones. You were just the easy target. It wasn't your fault." Marth explained.

"Which part? The part she blamed me for practically attempting to rape her or the fact she slapped me with Din's fire?" Ike drank the rest of the glass and snatched the bottle from Marth's grasp to pour a new glass.

"Same bullshit I have heard a hundred times. You ain't going to listen to me. What are you going to do, drink yourself so that you yourself cannot sleep and forget everything you have done under the haze of this drink?" Marth stood up and finished his own small glass of sake. "You are stronger than this Ike. You are not some yekke who lets some girl control their emotions."

"We are who we choose to be, Marth. And right now I just want to see the bottom of the bottle with no thoughts of that pathetic Hylain witch or of these damned nightmares. So if that makes me the pethetic drunk tonight and give Lord 'oh so high and fucking mighty' Link more ammunition to throw at me then go ahead I say. He and everyone else will say it no matter what I do."

Marth shook his head and opened the door. "When you sober up let me know. I want to talk to the Ike I have grown to know and respect over these past few years. Not this dower shell of a man that claims he is the Hero of Tellius." With his demand made apparent, Marth opened the oak door and slammed it behind him on his way out.

Ike looked incredulous as Marth departed. He gazed down into his glass, which like a siren called to him yet again. Smiling, he continued his drink, relishing as he felt his mind slip in to numbness. The numbness was then followed by the a feeling of lack of control.

That feeling was the greatest of all.


	7. Chapter 7

Zelda screamed as the flames licked her body just as they had done before in her dreams. Only this time there was no escape, no reality to wake up to from this nightmare. This was real. She swatted the aflame areas of her body, leaving slightly crisped skin like that seen after an intense sunburn and pieces of foul smelling burned silk from her dress. The room was covered with unnaturally frozen air molecules but at the same time the oiled bamboo floors burned in several places. All the while, stray bolts of Farore's Lightning was flowing into the electrical equipment, short circuiting them and adding the foul smell of burning ozone to the fray.

All the while, the monster in her head taunted her ceaselessly. _There is nothing you can do now, little bitch. After so long I will finally have my revenge for all that I have suffered. You will be the first and then you will watch as your world crumbles down around you. There is no hero that can save you, not this time. _

Zelda tried again to reign in her powers, and again they refused to abate. This was insane! If this demon inside of her was trying to control her, then why was it trying to destroy her body at the same time? She pushed her thoughts into her own mind. _Who do you think you are?! I am Zelda Harkinian, Lady Regent of Hyrule, First-_

 _First among equals, the Divine Princess of the Goddesses, blah, blah blah. You are someone who wears a mask to play those roles. Underneath all that you know what I see? I see nothing! I see a shell of a person who does nothing but play the roles they were given as a child. You are a puppet who sees the strings and worst of all you embrace that role!_ The voice beat her head like a violent verbal assault. She felt as if her brains would melt from the sheer madness of that. _You replace every emotion that makes you a living creature with hollow words and empty feelings. You give and receive_ _titles, but ultimately, no one gives a flying Minish shit what words you put in front of your name. Your emotions speak for yourself. You are an arrogant, passive leader who speaks high but who is nothing more than a shell for others to fill. _

Zelda tried again to dispel the elemental effects of her wayward magics or push the thoughts out of her head. It was again met with the same results. It was clear that she was very well beyond controlling these powers on her own accord. Rather than batter in futility, Zelda looked inwards, to the monster that lurked inside her head. _You are wrong! I do not live for my titles, I could care less if I was a Lady Regent or a handmaiden. I am strong, and I have many emotions that I show everyday that do not show me as an arrogant leader who others use as a door mat. I am a well balanced person, more so than any others here in the mansion!_

 _Simple lies you tell yourself to fall asleep at night. You hide yourself as if you are at a masquerade ball the entirety of of your life. Lust, anger, defiance, and even desire. All of these you have hidden in the deepest parts of your soul._ The voice struck a cord and Zelda felt her burned skin practically freeze at the revaluation. _Aw, did I hit a nerve there? Well be thankful that I told you that you arrogant little bitch. It will be one of the first truths you have ever heard in a long time._

Zelda covered her ears in a vain attempt to stifle the noise that was coming from inside her head. Her broken nails clawed at her scalp, droplets of blood trickling through her hair and running down her fingers. _Who… who are you?! What do you want with me?!_

The voice in her head laughed that reality defining laugh. _Are you really so stupid? Who do you think I am? I won't wait and let your trivial brain corrupted by overbearing controls struggle so I will tell you. I… am you. I was you and soon I swear I will be you._

Zelda shrank back into a ball, the words being pushed into her head giving her the confirmations she had always feared. No beast, no matter how skilled or talented with deception, could pull off that kind of an illusion on her even in her weakened state. She was terrified, for the first time since this has happened she felt purely terrified for her soul. The monster was not only inside her, but it was her! How could such a thing happen?! She was in control, had a balanced lifestyle, and was with out a doubt the most stable person who resided in these four walls.

He thoughts were interrupted by a powerful fist punching the bolted lock on her door free of its bearings. The door swung open and the green dressed figure of the Royal Protector Link stood before her. He flicked his hand out and threw his boomerang, causing a mini tornado that extinguished the majority of the smoldering wood floors and those that were burning. He rushed over to her and helped her to her feet, ignoring the painful flames as they nipped at his fingers. "My lady?" He was genuinely concerned.

He looked around at the peeling paint as it had suffered from the extreme heat of the flames and the thick frost. Her bed was tossed and charred in several places, and Zelda's soot covered face was streaked with tears. "I… I don't know what happened." Zelda lied poorly, though Link chose not to pursue it, knowing that she was already in too much grief already. "My mind is worn down… and I don't know what to do!"

Link nodded solemnly and looked at Zelda, whom he had sworn binding oaths to defend, secure in the knowledge that only in death will his duty end. Zelda looked into his eyes and saw only determination to solve a problem that had presented itself. But the voice in the back of her head would not let up. _Look at this poor bastard. A glorified errand boy with a sword arm, who laps up the victory of your kingdom and showers himself in shallow victory. He has many titles, yet you know that on the inside, he craves more exquisite_ _titles for more glory and prestige._ _He accepts the responsibility but seeks to be your equal. You know it as well as I do that he wishes to be more than just a servant. _

Link reached down into his pouch and extracted a small vial filled with a green elixir. "Well, what ever is plaguing you, it is taking control of your magical abilities and is causing havoc. I must protect you, even if it is from yourself. Here." He handed the vial to Zelda and uncorked it. "This will render you unconscious. It is the essence of Arrowsprout and the effects should be instant."

 _Ha, who does he think he is trying to fool? That is not the essence of Arrowsprout._ _The essence of that plant_ _is a greenish yellow syrup sweet to the smell. That is a deep emerald green, more commonly associated with a refined hemlock poison. And we know that Link does coat his blades with this poison to combat creatures who are too elusive for him to strike them down with his blade. He is giving a whole bottle to drink._

 _No! Link would never try to kill me! He is my Royal Protector and upon his soul he would protect me from all harm and cause me none!_ Zelda mentally shouted in her head but she began to swish the liquid around. It seemed to be more fluid rather than Arrowsprout, but perhaps it was to… no, it couldn't be. Link would not poison her, but she was forced to admit that there was a deep dark green color to this vial. Arrowsprout was an almost viridian hue that seemed to glow. And this liquid was dulled and muted. She sniffed it and it repulsed her, like rancid parsnips, not like that of the floral Arrowsprout.

Her hands began to shake as she looked back into Link's eyes as if demanding an explanation. Link did not look very amused and she swore he was a few moments away from force feeding her the elixir of death. _See, he wants the title he could never have with you around. What is the one position that outranks all others? He worked his way up to Royal Protector so he could strike you down when you are at your weakest. The Lord Regent Link… he has that title on his mind and this is the time. Are you going to let him kill you?_

Zelda shook her head and the voice in her head seemed to calm her body, and the flames that covered her arms abated. A sense of control and power fame flowing back to Zelda. It was not the raging inferno she had known before, it was more akin to a sulfur match. Still bright and powerful. _You know what needs to be done. Do not hesitate because he will not._

Zelda dropped the vial on to the ground and thrusted out her arm, slamming Link with an open palm blow on his muscled chest. She uttered a few syllables in an ancient dialect of Hyrule and a series of runes worked their way from her arm to the murderous Royal Protector. The blast of kinetic energy that followed threw Link from his feet and had him crash into the bed, shattering the bed frame and sending various other items flying in all directions.

 _There, now wasn't that liberating? Taking control of your own life and saving it?_ Despite herself, Zelda slightly nodded in agreement to this beast in her mind. Link began to moan as he recovered from the sudden attack. _You have felt anger and the satisfying taste of revenge. Now, unless you run he will cut you down where you stand._

So in fear, Zelda turned and began to run out the door. She stepped into the light green mixture as she did so, not even noticing the smell of fine flowers as she ran away from her protector.

* * *

Ike groaned and raised his head from the table, a massive headache mixed with his delusion of alcohol. Damnation, the nightmares had come again, and it was the same as the last one. Except it was far more real and he saw not just one person fall under his 'mercy' nor two, but all fifteen of them. He remembered each of their faces. Faces locked in horror but acceptance of what needed to be done. Not one of them resisted the gift Ike gave them, but some were more eager than others.

He reached for his glass and noticed that it had been tipped over and the few remaining contents had long since fallen to the ground and stained the carpet. He looked around through the haze that built up in his eyes around his room. He felt… different to say the least. Everything either moved slower than he wanted but at the same time he was not really in control of his body. It was as if he was viewing it through the eyes of detachment, not really being in control of his actions but still feeling everything that went on.

He shook his head and rose from the table, clumsily for the alcohol had sapped all sense of balance from his body. He wanted to go to bed, but when he found the bottle of dream killers entirely empty, he tossed the plastic bottle aside. He couldn't sleep without those pills and knew that when he would close his eyes again, he would have yet another nightmare. And he was all out of sake, either drinking all or having it spill all over the floor.

He opened his door and walked out into the hallway, still stumbling slightly, but thankfully it was at a later time in the evening and many of the smashers were in their rooms so they would not be judging him. He felt the need for another drink and knew just where to find one and it would be in relative peace as well.

He walked over to a somewhat of an abandoned wing of the mansions, where the spare rooms for travelers and temporary smashers would be located at for their short stay. However, there was the guest bar not far from there. It was mainly a self service one, being run by the glorified slaves and menials called Toads (the poor fuckers) that Peach brings along on rare occasions. No one, save the lesser scum and those in dire need of a drink visited there. Ike was just thankful he was a member of the latter group than the former.

A thin layer of dust greeted him, testament to the infrequency this place was used. Thankfully it was stocked full of the alcohol Ike needed to continue to blot his memory out of these dreams. He fumbled for a bottle. He grabbed one that was full of a clear liquor and cracked the top open, sniffing the spirit. It burned his nostrils, but it was a sign that it was strong. He knew he would have a lot of drinking to catch up on, a problem with his sturdy constitution. It would take him almost double the amount of alcohol it would take normal men to get a decent buzz, let alone drunk.

 _These nightmares, they occurred at the same time Zelda began to look frail._ Ike mused in his head as he poured himself a glass of what he assumed to be vodka. He swirled the drink around and threw back his head, draining the contents. His mind raced again with the thoughts as he poured yet another glass. _When I began to see my past: the people I have failed, killed in acts of misguided mercy, or slaughtered because of my untimeliness… Zelda herself seemed not much like herself. The magics she used were still potent but a fraction of what I had become accustomed to._ _I have never been one for conspiracies, but I cannot help but think our suffering is connected._

He looked into the crystal clear glass and brought it to his lips. He drank the vodka and almost instantly spat it back out. There was suddenly an extreme irony copper taste in his mouth. He looked into his glass and saw that the small glass of vodka had turned almost instantaneously into a vial full of blood. Ike recoiled and spat the taste from his mouth. Quickly with his tongue, he passed over his mouth. Yet he found no missing or cracked teeth, bleeding gums, or cankersores that burst from within his mouth. His vision began to swim in an almost instantaneous attack. He shook his head, trying to dispel whatever was over coming him. He took deep breaths, expecting to suck in lungfuls of the crisp air, but all he inhaled was the awful stench of the decaying dead. That rancid smell of ruined flesh and blistered souls. He heard it. The buzzing, oh goddesses, the buzzing was happening again! His vision changed, and he was back to his nightmares.

There stood the dead, a pile of corpses. It had been his fault. Had he been quicker, he might have saved them from their doom. Their lifeless eyes looked into his as if they were accusing him of the truth he saw in his own soul. Maggots crawled from their mouths moving the jaws as if they were speaking in some twisted parody. They mouthed two words, accusing him by mouthing the words 'your fault.'

Ike's vision came back to the present and he recoiled so far back into his chair that it tipped over and he fell to the floor with a clatter. He looked around, at the shadows which danced around him. Taunting him to the very end. He shook his head, steeling his mind but it was as futile as to grab the light of a star and hold it down. His vision swam again, no not again!

There he was, back in the flesh house of the prisoners, the accursed dagger in his hand as he had slit the final throat of one who was barely more than sixteen winters old. The look in the dead boy's eyes were the same as all the others, only this one was full of steely accusation along with inevitable acceptance. He was soaked again, head to foot in blood. All around him were the bodies of those who he had granted eternal peace too. How could he have done this, even though he had stored the memories deep in the most unassailable parts of his mind they still came out. He had put this behind him long ago. Who or what would find them there?!

He resurfaced again from his pools of eternal nightmares, he coughed, wrenching up what he thought to be blood but bringing up only air. He slammed his fist into the ground, stray spittle escaping his moth and landing on the floor. The nightmares came again, in all their terrible horror. Visions he had seen on many of his sleepless nights and others very recently. He gripped the carpeted floor as sweat trickled down his body, cold as ice as every failure, every life he took, and every mistake played before Ike. Taunting him with sickening malice.

* * *

Zelda ran fast, her fear lending her the speed she needed to make it to the other side of the mansion. She breathed in and out at a fast rate, as the adrenaline began to dilute in her veins. Undoubtedly, Link was already back on his feet and hunting her down to slay her. She needed to run, to hide anywhere where Link would not be able to find her. She thought of the perfect place to hide from him, the spare rooms. She had a spare key that would let her in and few, if anyone else, knew that she had the key or they had a similar key.

All the while, that voice still spoke in her head, urging her on. _Keep going. You are not safe yet._ Zelda had assumed that the part that claimed to be her was concerned for her well being only because if Zelda died, the voice died with her. She hated doing this and always felt as if the devil herself was tempting her. But desperate times would call for desperate measures.

She heard someone coughing as if they had just came out of water after they had almost drowned. Zelda heard as if it was right next to her door just around the corner. She shook her head and when she turned the corner, she saw the debased mercenary on his fists and knees coughing up a storm. Next to him was a tipped over chair and a spilled glass of clear liquid. Alcohol from the looks of it. Zelda shook her head distastefully and was about to move on when Ike took in a breath of air, his eyes falling upon her before he began his coughing fit. She froze as if she was rooted to the floor, and that was when the beast inside spoke. _Look at him, so weak and helpless. Normally, I would say forget him but he saw you and if Link discovers him, he could tell the murderer where you go. Also , _the thing in her head had a much more playful tone, y _ou may want to take him along. If you don't..._ Zelda felt the pangs of pain she felt right before losing control of her powers. She felt the fear build up in her heart and spat a few curses to being used as a puppet.

With an unprincess-like demeanor, Zelda gripped Ike forcefully and dragged the coughing brute near her door and inserted the old key. She turned it to the left and forced the door open quietly. Once she was in the spare, but clean room she pulled Ike in and locked the door behind him. She knelt over his convulsing body and pulled free a handkerchief and covered his mouth, drowning out the cough. When it was nothing more then a quiet sputter, she heard the fast footsteps of one person coming down the hallway. It wasn't Link, but it had roughly the same build. "Where is he? Oh for fuck's sake, he didn't?" It was Marth, he must have been looking at the mess Ike had left. "Why didn't I stay with him longer? Kept him to his room and talked to him?" There was the sound of a glass being kicked in frustration and it shattering against the nearby stone fireplace.

Ike had quieted down and Zelda, despite every urge for her to smother him, placed her finger on her lips in a universal symbol for quiet. There was some initial resistance, but Zelda's firm look kept the buzzed warrior still and silent.

A new set of feet entered the area and Zelda knew it was Link before it had even spoke. "Marth, have you seen the Lady Regent anywhere?" Zelda felt her spare hand clench into a fist. He did not deserve to call her by that title.

"Cannot say that I have. I have my own little- sweet heavens, Link what happened to you?!" Marth sounded shocked, an emotion he rarely used. "What happened to you? You look like you got ran over by a carriage."

"Her… her majesty as lost all reason. She attacked me when I was trying to help her. I fear she is not of her own spirit." Link spoke lonesomely. "Something is wrong with her Ladyship."

"Should have asked me if I heard anything. Thought the walls are soundproof, I have heard her waking up screaming for around a week. She has been looking tired, perhaps it is simply the delusion of sleep deprivation?" Marth explained.

"Possible, but I doubt it. The Lady Regent was angry with me, more angry than when she smacked you for your drunken lewd comments."

"Don't remind me." Marth groaned. "I myself was looking for Ike, but I seemed to have lost him. Perhaps we can be lucky and find the two together."

"Doubtful. That lazy meat head only serves her Majesty as a punching bag, and I have already checked the dojos for them."

The two pairs of feet began to walk away. "You know, some of us don't get our jollies by how many names and titles we have."

"I know. And I'll hate that bastard for reminding me." Link said as the two left and when they were far away Zelda let out a sigh of relief.

She looked to Ike, who stood up on his own feet and didn't offer the princess a hand up. She rose to her own feet and Ike looked as if he was about ready to spit acid. "Couldn't keep your anger just to me, eh Zellie?" He spoke in a loud whisper, jut below that of a normal voice.

Zelda groaned in annoyance. "If you weren't drunk, I would apologize for dragging you in here like the five year old you act like sometimes. But as to answer your question, like you taking advantage of me in my weaken state, Link tried to assassinate me!"

Ike laughed, but it was a hollow sound. "Bullshit. The pompoms peacock wouldn't do that as long as there are stars in the sky. You really have lost it."

"Shut it, borec pig!" She whisper-yelled as she struck him on the other cheek.

"Come back to reality, royal bitch." Ike shoved her away and walked away from her, turning his back to her for a long while before giving her a look of pure murder.

Zelda crossed her arms and looked as angry as she could, her patience wearing thin on the man. Yet she heard the voice again. _Look at him. Angry, flustered, and probably aroused. You won't have a better opportunity to do it. Think of it, you know you want it. And if you don't well I wonder how he will react to you bursting into flames all of a sudden. _ Zelda felt the pain come again, and remained where she was so firmly planted

The two continued looked at each other for a brief moment in pure hatred, but urged on by the voice in her head, Zelda met Ike in the middle of the room, colliding with a kiss primed on their lips. Emotions of pent up rage boiled away to the sexual tension between the two of them. Though Zelda was the more aggressive one in the kisses, Ike was no stranger and his own lips applied the right amount of pressure and care to her own.

Showing no sign of slowing down, Zelda pulled back on the clips to her dress and allowed the garment to fall onto the carpeted floor. Ike gazed at the goddess before her and allowed her fingers to work off the buttons to his own top and helped her pull it off. She licked her lips in anticipation as she ran her fingers over the marbled hairless muscle that Ike had trained himself to attain. The tough, edged muscles were a sharp contrast to the smooth and supple skin Zelda had. As Zelda ran her unblemished hand over Ike's chest, Zelda chuckled with gleeful abandon as Ike's calloused hands did the same to her.

Zelda squeaked as she began to be fondled in such a barbaric manner, but it made her desire him all the more. Reason had bled from her mind and the voice continued to urge her to surrender all of it in front of this mercenary. She began to kiss him more passionately and her hands move down from his chest to his pants and slowly began to pull them down. Ike helped her with rare eagerness and soon he was standing before her with nothing save his own skin.

He forced her hands to continue exploring his body, guiding them to the certain pars he wanted and how to manipulate them. He took his other hand and cupped the back of her head, bringing her deeper into the kiss. He let loose a throaty groan as she did as he showed her. "Lay back." Zelda whispered and Ike spread his cape down on the carped floor and did as he was told.

Zelda stood over him and began to slowly remove her silken thigh high stockings and shoes with an almost torturous slow pace. After removing that, she went to the last of her laced garments, sometimes stopping halfway through to elicit disappointing groan from Ike. However, her clothes soon fell assorted with the rest.

She sat down upon Ike and rested her hands on his shoulders. Ike leaned forward to meet her lips and continued with slow, meaningful pecks on her lips. He took a lock of her hair and smelled beyond the thin layer of smoke to smell the jasmine and other floral scents. His calloused hands moved down her lithe sides and firmly gripped her rear, massaging it as she squeaked like an ungreased hinge. "Enough of this toying around?" Ike breathed as he awaited her permission. Zelda nodded and rose slightly as one of Ike's hand moved away, and she awaited the blissful feeling that would come next.

* * *

With in a few short minutes, Zelda and Ike reached new levels of intimacy that they had never known before. It was like a dance almost, each one moving in coordination with the other Zelda had originally started siting tall and proud as if she was upon a throne but was now mere centimeters from Ike's face, breathing heavily and kissing him with reckless abandon. Their eyes were transfixed one each other, and they whispered their hidden lust-fueled desires to each other as Ike nibbled on the tip of Zelda's ear.

Pain and pleasure seemed to mix together in perfect harmony as they continued, neither one of them showing the fatigue that had worn them down to the point in which they would not be able to keep up this pace much longer. Ike's hands moved up from Zelda's hips and pressed in on her back, bringing her closer to him and having her chest firmly planted against his own. Relishing as her soft yielding flesh met his own hardened one. "Zelda..." That word gave her the warning she neither wanted nor needed to hear. She was not going to move anywhere. She cooed him and kept the rhythm flowing until neither one of them could hold back their desires anymore.

Zelda bit into Ike's shoulder and let loosed a dulled scream while Ike clenched his teeth with a shattering pressure. Sweat glossed their bodies that glowed in the light of the moon. Zelda collapsed, her breathing heavy and labored just as much as Ike's. She brushed her hair behind her ears and closed her eyes, hoping for blissful sleep.

But the voice was still there, and it spoke with a satisfied laugh. _You are truly foolish, aren't you? You listened to me once in your room, that was your first mistake. You gave in to your lustful desires with this sack of meat, that makes your second mistake. You will not make a third. Time to leave, your 'highness'._

And the tell-tale pain flared through Zelda's body, and she did not know how long she could contain it this time.


	8. Chapter 8

Ike knew that something was wrong with Zelda before she had even spoken a word to him. Even in the afterglow of their lustful endeavor, his mind was less addled then it was previously, he noted by the way her face contorted as they placed their clothes back on. The way she bit her bottom lip, which was already bruised from their moment of passion, and the way she balled her hand as if to take her mind off something. He had seen it before, having done it himself as well to take his mind off of pain by focusing his nerves somewhere else. He touched her shoulder, still relished the feel of her skin, "Zelda, are you in pain?"

She gave Ike a weary look, a look that told the truth better than any series of words could. She sat down on thin single mattress that made up the cot they overlooked. Ike sat down next to her, his every instinct sharpened. "Y...ye…yes." She reluctantly said the words, as if doing so would seal her death. Though Ike could tell that it was not the pain itself that held her back from saying those words, rather it was the stigma she felt in asking for help. "I am indeed in pain. The sensations our mortal bodies experience are different for one attuned to the ways of the arcane. Every sensation, every desire, every emotion is greater because of my connection to the Arcane Plains. Everything we do must be controlled, lest we lose our grasp on ourselves. Many of our magi and sorceresses have become nothing more than shells to things that lurk beyond."

Zelda twitched, her eyebrows winced as if she had been struck by something. "But the thing many fear is that once we have drank deep from the well of power, other things share that power."

Ike raised his own eyebrow. "Not sure I am following. I know the principals of the magic my world has, but your own world is clearly different. Is this a typical Hylian thing?"

Zelda sucked in a deep lungful of air sharply, another clear sign of pain. "Yes. Though this is not some malicious entity seeking my soul light or to use my body as a twisted flesh marionette. I fear… I am fighting myself over the control of my own body."

"Zelda, I may still have a slight buzz going on but I know how bad that sentence sounded."

Zelda shook her head. "Let me explain. Through discipline and training does a sorceress such as myself attain full control of magic. However, we must also control ourselves with an iron will. If we give in to selfishness, desires, and anger it would destroy the very foundations upon which our nation is constructed. And as the Lady Regent, this is double true for me as the ruler of a kingdom. As such I must wear this mask of a dainty, cold ruler. But I fear the emotions I have locked away for so long have been waiting for this moment."

She seemed as if she was about to burst into tears. "When my insomnia began almost two weeks, the nightmares were what I would expect of a normal monarch. Failure, miscalculations… each one of them were based on cold, hard logical facts that can happen. But after the second night they took a much darker turn, as if they were fueled by some black will. Much more personal, as if they were specifically directed at me as far as my personality goes."

"Around the same time my nightmares came into existence, of troubles I have long since put in my past. Perhaps the two are connected somehow? Maybe a specter used my nightmares as energy to use against you?" Ike asked, holding Zelda's arm to control and calm her. He almost recoiled at the unexpected heat that permeated from her skin. It felt as if she was on fire.

"A sound hypothesis, one likely true in the worse case scenario, but I pray to the goddesses that it is not. Last night I conducted a dark ritual from a black tome to see the true face of my tormenter who hounded me. What I saw when the dark smoke cleared away was none other than my own face." Zelda explained quickly, her spare hand shooting up to her forehead and massaging it as if it were a pounding headache. "It is not unheard of that when a magic user like myself attain so much power that other parts of our body and soul become enchanted. I fear the emotions I hold at bay have attained a considerable amount of power and seek to no longer be restrained in my mind."

Both of her hands flew up and a squeak of pain. Her voice became much more hurried, in fear that she had not much longer before she lost herself to the negative. "It… it has been scratching… growing since then. It has only just begun to taunt me and like a fool I listened to it. It told me if I caved to things such as anger… and lust it would stay away. But I fear such things have only encouraged its growth. My mind is wearing thin and the leash I have on my powers is frayed."

As if in answer to that last statement, witch fire erupted along Zelda's left arm, causing her to violently swat the flames out. Given the heat Ike felt, he was for sure that Zelda's arm would be suffering second and third degree burns. But to his surprise the skin was burned a lobster red, much like as if someone spent a whole day sun bathing only to be burned. "This… this is nothing compared to what can happen if I lose all control of my powers."

Ike looked to Zelda. He knew that she was telling the truth and somewhere in her will there raged a battle where her darkest desires were besting the control Zelda had mustered to stand against such an invasion. Zelda was too weak in the mind to continue, and even now Ike could tell that the beast inside her head was gloating with victory. There was no way that Zelda could hold it back for much longer. Unless…

"Zelda, you said something along the lines that something can enter your mind's walls if you are unguarded or unprepared?"

Zelda nodded slowly, massaging her temples with quivering hands and an equally quivering voice. "Y… yes. An open mind is like a castle with the gates unbarred and unguarded."

Ike turned his body so that he was facing Zelda directly. "Is it possible that you can lower your defenses and allow my will power in? I may not be attuned to the ways of the arcane realms, but I have seen and done some things that would break lesser men. I may be worn down, but I am in far better mental condition than you."

Zelda stopped her ministrations on her temples. True, Ike may have still has a slight haze of intoxication in his eyes but he was still sharp enough to think critically and rationally. While it would have been better if he had some magic in his blood that would not require the use of a tome, it was still very possible. But it was wrong, every dictation of Hylian proper manners and civility demanded that this didn't go forward.

The pain flared up again, worse then Zelda had imagined. To the nine hells with civility and one's social appearance, rules were made to be broken. "Your own mind may snap or destroyed if you fail against whatever awaits you there."

"A price I will willingly gamble on." Ike responded and Zelda took a few more deep breaths of air. Calmed, she turned to face Ike, raising her hands.

"Then relax, open yourself up to the infinite futures, the strands of fate and the twisting river of time…" Zelda calmed Ike and placed her hands on the side of Ike's head. "Embrace eternity."

Zelda lowered her mental barriers for a second, and Ike slipped in like a needle.

* * *

The sensation of entering Zelda's head was a very unnerving thing for Ike. It was searing and blinding, like looking at the noon sun with your eyes screwed shut. Colors of every kind, those named and those that he could not even begin to comprehend flew by his vision as he came into the shattered fortress of Zelda's mind.

Whatever was attacking her mind was doing a very through and complete job. Ike looked around and saw himself in some sort of castle. Probably mimicked after Castle Hyrule given the descriptions he had overheard from Link the Peacock. Though like her mind, this fortress was beaten down. Pristine marble and granite were shattered to pieces. Fine oak was burned and falling to the ground in clumps of ruined charcoal. But something else bled out of the ruination, something much more...archaic for the lack of a better term. Where as Zelda's mind fortress was designed to be distinguished yet practical, the designs coming out from the ruinations were much more ostentatious, though very menacing. The destroyed walls spoke of control, just thinking, and rationality. The new decorations yelled spur of the moment, dark desires and chaos.

Ike looked down on himself and noticed that he was dressed much like his younger self. Where there should have been armor there was nothing but light cloth. Actually, upon looking himself over, he _was_ his younger self. While he still had a considerable amount of muscle and strength, he was clearly not at his prime.

"Hello dearest Ike." The voice, it was her tone for sure… but there was something off about it. It seemed to echo, as if impossibly it continued to echo inside his head. "Glad you could join me."

He turned around and had to clench his jaw shut in an attempt to keep it gaping open. Zelda, or rather the other and much more debased side of her, was seated upon a throne like a mage queen of old. She wore a very revealing red silken dress cut along the legs and stomach with a mixture of battle plate covering her forearms, shoulders and chest. Not very practical, but it served its purpose in distraction. As Ike looked this doppelganger up and down, he noticed that the interloper's skin was shining like cut diamonds in the sunlight. He would not need to be a sorcerer to tell that it was magic that flowed through her veins and reflected through her skin. "I have been waiting to meet the object of my lust for quite some time now."

Ike grunted, reaching for Ragnell but he found nothing. Blast, it looks like he would have to use words instead of his sword. "Save your honeyed words. Where is the real Zelda? I may not be a witch, but I know you are not her."

Other Zelda laughed. "Silly man, you would make a fine court jester if you were not serious. I am the real Zelda, the true Zelda. But if you wish to see the mask she wears to deny herself her ultimate power, I'll get her." She revealed a small violet circle tied around her finger with a strand leading out to somewhere not seen. She beckoned it forward, yanking on the strand when whatever was on the other end did not come immediately.

A small Hylian child, dressed in the rags of Zelda's usual attire stumbled forward. The child looked very much like a young Zelda, thorough her hair and skin was bruised, battered, burned, and bloody. "Here she is. The 'Zelda Harkinian, First of the Chosen, the Lady Regent' la dee da dee fucking la!" Other Zelda violently backhanded the child, sending it sprawling back onto the ground. "For as long as she was practicing magics, I was placed aside, locked away in the deepest parts of her subconscious like a prison who had done nothing wrong. Treated worse than what I am doing to her now, so take that into consideration when you decide to act. She is now reduced to what she always was, a scared child with no mommy's gown to hold on to."

"She needed to rule wisely, that is why she locked you away. She couldn't let dangerous emotions damn not only her but also her kingdom!" Ike couldn't believe that he, who enjoyed a bit of chaos with his order, was saying those words.

"Maybe, but she was stupid enough to trust me. To believe that if she gave into what I wanted, I would leave her alone. Sadly, she was stupid enough to let me control her senses, and I manipulated her like a puppet with strings." Other Zelda explained.

"So did Link truly try to kill Zelda or was that all an illusion?" Ike asked, to slate his own curiosity.

"Deep within his heart, he desires the role of Lord Regent. He would prefer to rule by Zelda's side, but she will never accept his advances and he knows it. He will not kill her or put her in the way of harm, his code of honor would not allow him. But if something were to happen to her, he would take advantage and move to ascend the throne. I simply manipulated Zelda's sight and smell to make it seem as if she was being poisoned. Though I wish I could have done more than that, to right all the wrongs she had done to me."

"She may have wronged you and very rarely indulged in your debased desires but she-"

"She is a weak, frail woman. Barely worthy of life, much less respect." The interloper interupted. "A frail, wealthy, dying woman who is ready to be killed and torn apart by a far worthier children."

"You are still a snot-nosed, bratty child. Always have been. Too arrogant to listen, too spiteful to prosper." Ike countered.

"Really, what do you call your nightmares then? I would consider that prospering." Ike was taken aback, just for a moment, but the Other Zelda saw the moment of doubt in his heart. Her voice became nothing more than a whisper. "You are a monster, Ike. You are so alike to me, the 'lesser emotions' permeate from you… it is indulgent to taste it on your soul. Guilt… lust… anger… regret. Every one of these emotions, even from deep within my confines I could feel as if they were right in front of me."

She reached down and pulled free a wavy dagger… no not just any dagger. It was the dirk, covered in the blood of all of those he had killed with it. Both upon the field of battle and away from it. She tossed it before Ike's feet. Not a drop of blood was split on the ever changing tiles, it was as if the blood was kept moving but always on the blade. "I used those emotions and forbidden memories of your past as energy to use against this wreck of an individual. All I needed was time, and when you were worn down, the nightmares became worse. More energy I drank from to bring Zelda to her knees. When she is finally broken, I will assume my rightful place as the guiding force to this unexploited sorceress. With a nation at my back, I will bring about a great renaissance to the Kingdom of Hyrule, one carved in my image."

"You are insane!" Ike proclaimed as he scooped up the dirk and held it in a fighting position. He could hear an insect noise in the back of his head as he gripped it, but he shook it away.

"Really? Because given that we are the same, you should find me quite charming." The grown Zelda walked down the stairs with a satisfied smirk on her lips. Ike cracked his own dry smile and with a blur, he charged at her. Other Zelda seemed unfazed and stepped aside with impossible speeds, as if she was in another current of time than Ike. She delivered a bone snapping punch, knocking the wind out of Ike. The blow was so powerful that Ike felt his mortal body react with the pain. Before Ike had even hit the ground, Hylian runes flowed off of the interlopers arms and colided with Ike's will, sending his avatar sprawling back thirteen paces.

She was on top of him in an instant, picking him off the ground with little effort, such was the augmentation of her strength. She threw Ike down into the ground, the shifting tiles shattered with rib shattering force. "Come on, stop holding the monster back, luscious mercenary! Give me a challenge at least."

Ike rose to his hands and knees, his dirk still clutched firmly in his hands. "What happened to you? What caused you to become a monster?"

"I didn't choose anything. I am, after all, a mortal creature." She grabbed Ike by the back of his neck and with great force threw him against her decaying throne. The metal and wood shattered under the pressure from Ike, sending him sprawling to the ground as a much more anarchic throne rose to take the place where the former one was.

He rolled over, his willpower damaged but still there. He looked up and saw the tattered Zelda, who was now a prisoner in her body look into his eyes. She didn't speak a word, but that look alone gave him a fire to carry. He came back to his feet, and saw the interloper coming for him with maliciously slow pace.

Ike ran at her again, recalling every spar he had fought with Zelda and trying to apply it to his current fight. However, it was still a grossly outmatched contest. Every attempt to strike with his dirk was countered, which taunted him in his head with the faces of those he had killed with it. He was exhausted, his willpower being all but spent. On the other hand, Other Zelda seemed to be invigorated by the fight, gifted by the well of power she dunk from. Ike thrusted with the dirk, aimed for her heart but the interloper caught the blade in the hook of her and tugged Ike forward, meeting his face with a powerful open hand blow.

Ike went down on the ground again, and this Zelda stamped a foot down on his chest, eliciting a cry of pain. The interloper began to laugh and reached down to the hand the held the dirk. She picked that arm up and strained against Ike's muscle to force it down, blade first into his chest. "Enough of these games. I will slay you here and now. Your mind will be shattered and soon after, hers as well. A shame, for two similar individuals, two monsters who have done horrible things, I am clearly the stronger one."

Ike knew he had one chance, one last desperate chance before the end. He called upon every last iota of willpower he could muster into his arm, fighting against the strain the fallen emotions. "There… there is a difference between you and I." He threw his strength into his arms and wrists, slowly twisting the blade upwards. The doppelganger was shocked and tried to react but even with all of her augmented abilities, she couldn't best the willpower of one determined such as Ike. "We have both taken a look into the abyss. But when the abyss looked back at us..."

The dagger was upwards and aimed at Zelda's chest. "You blinked." He thrusted upwards, rupturing diamond cut flesh and piercing the very essence of the damned creature. She screamed, a painful yet satisfying sound to hear. Ike pulled the dagger free and grabbed the extended leash that connected the real Zelda to this imposter. He cut the bondage free, emancipating the real Zelda from the last of the influences of her misguided emotions.

* * *

With a jolt, Ike came back into his body breaking what ever trance he was under. Zelda was covered in sweat, and he likewise. Zelda felt her head, and Ike saw that whatever pain and dreariness she felt was had started to bleed away. "It… I can feel my mind again! My thoughts are my own!" She sounded happier than Ike had ever seen her and she instantly embraced him, taking him aback for a moment as she began to cry into his clothed shoulder.

Likewise, Ike also felt his dreariness slip away from him, and he felt slightly more energized then he had before. He knew that the memories were still there and in his sleepless nights they may come back to haunt him, but they would be natural. He would not have the reoccurring night terrors, he would not need sake to drown it out or …

Cold realization finally began to settle in on Ike, as did it moments later for Zelda. They had solved their night terrors and had halted the damned thing that was causing them. But at what cost? How many more problems were created in their quest to solve this one.

Bridges had been burned. Her senses and mind her own once again, Zelda saw the true colors and smelled the real smell of the liquid Link had offered to her. It was arrowsprout, not hemlock after all. She was a fool and listened to the tormenter inside of her head. Not only that, but she attacked her defender for no reason based in reality. Tears swelled up as she knew she would have to make amends and penitence to the goddesses for the use of black magics.

Ike had to repair his friendship with Marth, and swear off the sake, lest he lost control again. The clonidine would be found or noticed missing eventually. And when that time came, Ike had many things to answer for. How would they explain it? The truth would be unbelievable at best, insulting at worst.

Ike looked over to Zelda. "You realized what you had to do to achieve this, as well?" With Zelda nodding, Ike leaned in and kissed her forehead. "If it is any comfort, I probably have more to answer for than attacking Link."

She smiled, but it was humorless. "We still have demons to face in this. But it does make me feel better that I have a mercenary at my side with the same baggage."

Ike cracked his own dry smile. There would be dark days ahead for them both. They may have stopped one problem of their plagued sleep made manifest, but they would have to deal with the fallout of many other problems. But as they had done before, they would endure.

They would endure it together.


End file.
